Poetry For All

Lucille Clifton (1936-2010) was one of the most powerful poets of the twentieth century. This joyful poem caps a sequence of sixteen poems called "some jesus," which walks through biblical characters (beginning with Adam and Eve) and ends on four poems for Holy Week and Easter. She wrote other poems on the Bible as well, including "john" and "my dream about the second coming," which reimagine a way into biblical characters to make their stories fresh. Clifton wrote from the perspective of a Black woman and many of her most famous poems address race and gender. Clear-eyed about struggles and hardships, insistent in her calls for justice and equality, Clifton's poetry carries a consistent joy and hope, which is apparent (and abundant) in "spring song." Clifton's poetry was known for its lean style, paring everything down to its essential elements. In addition to award-winning collections of poetry, Clifton also wrote sixteen books for children (and had six children herself). For the text of "spring song," and for a recording of Lucille Clifton reading it, see The Poetry Foundation. For more on Lucille Clifton see her biography at The Poetry Foundation. For an introduction to Lucille Clifton, see the poem sampler "Lucille Clifton 101" by Benjamin Voigt.Links:spring song by Lucille Clifton | Poetry FoundationPoetry FoundationAbout Lucille Clifton | Academy of American PoetsLucille Clifton 101 by Benjamin Voigt | Poetry Foundation

We’re sharing a special preview of a podcast we’ve been enjoying, Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso, from Pushkin Industries. Talk Easy is a weekly interview podcast, where writer Sam Fragoso invites actors, writers, activists, and musicians to come to the table and speak from the heart in ways you probably haven't heard from them before. Driven by curiosity, he’s had revealing conversations with everyone from George Saunders and Cate Blanchett to Ocean Vuong and Gloria Steinem. In this preview, Sam talks with poet Claudia Rankine about her book Just Us: An American Conversation, how history remains present for black people, and why we must repeatedly unpack what privilege looks and sounds like in America. You can listen to Talk Easy at https://podcasts.pushkin.fm/tepoetryforall.Links:Home – Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso

In this episode, we look at Ben Jonson's elegy for his son who died of the plague at the age of 7. This poem is so brief, and yet, it manages to cross a lot of emotional terrain as Jonson struggles to understand the profundity of his loss. Here is the poem: On my First Son Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy; My sin was too much hope of thee, lov'd boy. Seven years tho' wert lent to me, and I thee pay, Exacted by thy fate, on the just day. O, could I lose all father now! For why Will man lament the state he should envy? To have so soon 'scap'd world's and flesh's rage, And if no other misery, yet age? Rest in soft peace, and, ask'd, say, "Here doth lie Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry." For whose sake henceforth all his vows be such, As what he loves may never like too much. To learn more about the magnificent Ben Jonson, check this page on the British Library website. To learn more about couplets, epigrams, elegies, and apostrophes, click this page on the Academy of American Poets website.

In this episode, Ann Hudson joins us to read her poem “Soap” and discuss how its narrative structure allows her to explore the history of science, technology, and our notions of progress and beauty, even when those notions do great harm to ordinary workers. Ann is the author of two collections of poetry: The Armillary Sphere, which was selected by Mary Kinzie as the winner of the Hollis Summers Poetry Prize and published by Ohio University Press; and Glow, published by Next Page Press. Her poems have appeared in many literary journals, including Crab Orchard Review, North American Review, Orion, Prairie Schooner, and The Seattle Review. Ann is senior editor for RHINO. To learn more about Ann's work, please visit her website.

In this episode, Margaret Noodin joins us to discuss her poem "What the Peepers Say." In our conversation, we talk about Margaret's writing in both Anishinaabemowin and English, her attention to sounds and rhythms, and what the peeper--a tiny springtime frog--can teach us about presence and listening. Margaret Noodin is the author of two bilingual collections of poetry in both Anishinaabemowin and English: Weweni and What the Chickadee Knows. She is a professor of English and American Indian Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, where she also serves as director of the Electa Quinney Institute for American Indian Education. To learn more about Ahishinaabemowin, visit ojibwe.net. To hear the sound of the spring peeper, click on this link. Photo of Margaret Noodin © Troye Fox.

To read Hayden's poem, click here. Thanks to W.W. Norton & Company for granting us permission to read this poem. Reginald Dwayne Betts's introduction to the Collected Poems of Robert Hayden is very moving, as is the afterword by Arnold Rampersad. For a series of insightful observations about Hayden's sonnet, see Ross Gay, Aracelis Girmay, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Patrick Rosal, and Ira Sadoff, "Poets Respond: A Discussion of "Frederick Douglass" by Robert Hayden." American Poetry Review, 38.3 (2009): 25-28. For a helpful close reading of the poem, see Fred M. Fetrow, "Robert Hayden's 'Frederick Douglass': Form and Meaning in a Modern Sonnet." CLA Journal 17.1 (September 1973): 78-84.

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was a prolific writer and activist of the nineteenth century. In this episode, Professor Janaka Bowman Lewis joins us to discuss her power, influence, voice, and work. "Learning to Read" foregrounds the ballad style in a narrative poem designed to keep alive the memories of fighting for both literacy and liberation. For the full text of the poem, see here: "Learning to Read" Janaka Bowman Lewis is an Associate Professor of English at the University of North Carolina--Charlotte, and she includes a chapter on Frances Ellen Watkins Harper in Freedom Narratives of African American Women: A Study of 19th Century Writings. For a good recent article about this poem by Madeline Zehnder, see Commonplace. For more on Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, see the Poetry Foundation. For good resources on F.E.W. Harper, especially materials related to the recovery and teaching of her first book of poems, Forest Leaves, see the Just Teach One archive at Commonplace. For the best collection of Harper's work, see Frances Smith Foster, A Brighter Coming Day: A Frances Ellen Watkins Harper Reader For further reading, see Harper's most famous novel, Iola Leroy.Links:Learning to Read by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper | Poetry FoundationFrances Ellen Watkins Harper | Poetry FoundationFrances Ellen Watkins Harper, Media Theorist - Commonplace - The Journal of early American LifeJust Teach One: Early African American Print » Frances Ellen Watkins (Harper)’s Forest Leaves (ca. 1846)A Brighter Coming Day — Feminist PressIola Leroy by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper: 9780143106043 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

In this episode, we provide a close reading of William Shakespeare's Sonnet 116, which allows us to consider the poem's definition of a love that is enduring. In addition, though, we consider a reading of the poem which foregrounds a disappointed poetic speaker who can see the love's transience, too. For the text of this poem, click here. Colin Burrow and Stephen Booth's editions of Shakespeare's sonnets are essential reading for anyone who wants to know more about this amazing sonnet sequence. During the pandemic, Sir Patrick Stewart has read one Shakespeare sonnet each day and share it on YouTube. To hear him read Sonnet 116 and so many others, click here.

This week, Rafia Zafar joins us to discuss "We Wear the Mask" by the great poet and writer Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906). Rafia leads us in a discussion of Dunbar's fame and influence while opening up broader themes of African American history and literature. We Wear the Mask BY PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,— This debt we pay to human guile; With torn and bleeding hearts we smile, And mouth with myriad subtleties. Why should the world be over-wise, In counting all our tears and sighs? Nay, let them only see us, while We wear the mask. We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries To thee from tortured souls arise. We sing, but oh the clay is vile Beneath our feet, and long the mile; But let the world dream otherwise, We wear the mask! For more on Paul Laurence Dunbar, visit The Poetry Foundation. For more on Rafia Zafar, see her personal website at Washington University in St. Louis. Youtube has a brief clip from the Library of America hosting Kevin Young's discussion of "We Wear the Mask." Elizabeth Alexander also discusses this poem for the Library of America. For more on the poetic form of the rondeau, see the Academy of American Poets.Links:Paul Laurence Dunbar | Poetry FoundationRafia Zafar | Arts & SciencesHome | Rafia Zafar | Washington University in St. LouisKevin Young Discusses "We Wear the Mask" by Paul Laurence Dunbar - YouTubeElizabeth Alexander Comments on "We Wear the Mask" by Paul Laurence Dunbar - YouTubeRondeau | Academy of American Poets

In this episode, our guest Laura Van Prooyen reads "Elegy for My Mother's Mind," a poem that navigates the complexities of memory, loss, and familial relationships. Laura's poem gives us an opportunity to think about the deep sources of poetic inspiration, the revision process, and the power of metaphor. To learn more about Laura's work, check her website. Click here to see the version of the poem that appeared in Prairie Schooner. Our two favorite books on elegy are Jahan Ramazani's Poetry of Mourning: The Modern Elegy from Hardy to Heaney and Peter Sacks's The English Elegy: Studies in the Genre from Spenser to Yeats.