Poetry Centered

Sawako Nakayasu selects poems that confront griefs personal and national, told directly and obliquely. She introduces Timothy Liu documenting the atrocities of Japanese imperialism (“A Requiem for the Homeless Spirits”), Daniel Borzutzky’s translation of Raul Zurita witnessing to the brutal crimes of the Chilean dictatorship (“Song for His Disappeared Love”), and Keith Waldrop conjuring a grief-riddled dream landscape (“An Apparatus”). Nakayasu closes with her own “Ant in a silvery tide,” a poem linked to a time of personal grief.Find the full recordings of Liu, Borzutzky, and Waldrop reading for the Poetry Center on Voca:Timothy Liu (February 20, 2014)Daniel Borzutzky (January 10, 2019)Keith Waldrop (with Rosmarie Waldrop, March 5, 2011)You can also enjoy three recordings of Nakayasu reading for the Poetry Center in 2007, 2018, and 2023.Full transcripts of every episode are available on Buzzsprout. Look for the transcript tab under each episode. Voca is now fully captioned, with interactive transcripts and captions available for all readings! Read more about the project here, or try out this new feature by visiting Voca.

Jake Skeets, a poet and author, discusses the power of Diné language and its cultural resonance. Joined by Rex Lee Jim, who shares his poem "Language," they explore how voice breathes life into identity. Laura Tohe, the Navajo Nation Poet Laureate, adds depth with her rhythmic poems highlighting the sacredness of language. Together, they reflect on the impact of settler colonialism, the role of poetry in connection, and the intricate dance between language and the environment. Skeets wraps up with his own poem on the act of translation.

Sally Wen Mao shares poems that trace her awakening as a poet, invoking teachers both in person and on the page. She introduces Claribel Alegría on how to express the unknowable and untraceable (“Savoir Faire”), Terrance Hayes on transformation as the role of poetry in the world (“The Deer”), and Bhanu Kapil on poetic language as a means of collapsing borders (“Humanimal”). Mao concludes with her poem “a dream or a fox,” written after Lucille Clifton’s “A Dream of Foxes.” Find the full recordings of Alegría, Hayes, and Kapil reading for the Poetry Center on Voca: Claribel Alegría (1997)Terrance Hayes (2016)Bhanu Kapil (2008)Full transcripts of every episode are available on Buzzsprout. Look for the transcript tab under each episode. Voca is now fully captioned, with interactive transcripts and captions available for all readings! Read more about the project here, or try out this new feature by visiting Voca.

Lauren Camp selects poems that each inhabit a place, a music, another person—shaping a cosmos large or small in language. She introduces Beckian Fritz Goldberg synchronizing past and present (“Black Fish Blues”), Olga Broumas moving through shadows toward individual lives (“The Moon of Mind Against the Wooden Louver”), and Lisel Mueller cherishing names as a beginning (“Naming the Animals”). Camp closes with her poem “Ode to Two,” where land, house, and lovers are celebrated by light.Listen to the full recordings of Goldberg, Broumas, and Mueller reading for the Poetry Center on Voca:Beckian Fritz Goldberg (1994)Olga Broumas (1988)Lisel Mueller (1981) Full transcripts of every episode are available on Buzzsprout. Look for the transcript tab under each episode. Voca is now fully captioned, with interactive transcripts and captions available for all readings! Read more about the project here, or try out this new feature by visiting Voca.

Sophia Terazawa introduces poems that lead us to encounter both the beloved and the enemy, seeing them blurred and intertwined—seeing them as human. She shares Joy Harjo’s prayer of courage for the heart (“This Morning I Pray for My Enemies”), Khaled Mattawa’s recognition of the faceless dead (“Face: To the One Million Plus”), and Carolyn Forché’s liturgy for the last hour (“Prayer”). To close, Terazawa reads her poem “Gibbons Howling,” a prayer spoken from dreams into dust.    Watch the full recordings of Harjo, Mattawa, and Forché reading for the Poetry Center on Voca:Joy Harjo (2017)Khaled Mattawa (2018)Carolyn Forché (2007)Full transcripts of every episode are available on Buzzsprout. Look for the transcript tab under each episode. Voca is now fully captioned, with interactive transcripts and captions available for all readings! Read more about the project here, or try out this new feature by visiting Voca.

Radical Reversal highlights the reformative abilities of the arts by bringing poetry, music, and music production workshops—along with performance and recordings spaces—to detention centers and correctional facilities. In this bonus episode, Radical Reversal co-founder Randall Horton shares recordings from three youth writers and performers who worked with Radical Reversal at Jefferson County Youth Detention Center in Birmingham, Alabama. Poet Patrick Rosal makes a guest appearance on flute for the track "Aint No Love in the Streets."To watch readings by poets whose work engages with the crisis of mass incarceration in the US, check out Voca for recordings from the Poetry Center's Art for Justice series.Full transcripts of every episode are available on Buzzsprout. Look for the transcript tab under each episode. Voca is now fully captioned, with interactive transcripts and captions available for all readings! Read more about the project here, or try out this new feature by visiting Voca.

Manuel Paul López curates poems that draw us into the nourishing mysteries of water. He shares Ofelia Zepeda’s evocation of moisture’s deep ties to people and land ("The Place Where Clouds Are Formed"), Li-Young Lee’s meditation on weeping and the gifts given by those we’ve lost ("'Why are you crying,' my father asked…"), and Quincy Troupe’s precise, tender visions of sunlight and sea ("The Point Loma Series of Haikus and Tankas"). López closes with "Green Water," his own meditation on "the wild taste of self-preservation."You can watch the full recordings of Zepeda, Lee, and Troupe reading for the Poetry Center on Voca:Ofelia Zepeda (2015)Li-Young Lee (2020)Quincy Troupe (2001)Full transcripts of every episode are available on Buzzsprout. Look for the transcript tab under each episode. Voca is now fully captioned, with interactive transcripts and captions available for all readings! Read more about the project here, or try out this new feature by visiting Voca.

Poet and professor Evie Shockley introduces poems woven together by a subtle thread of committed attention to place and what happens there—the places of language, self, ancestry, and tragedy. She introduces Mónica de la Torre engaging with languages as wild topography ("Is to Travel Getting to or Being in a Destination"), Marilyn Chin uncovering the political territory of the self ("A Portrait of Self as Nation: 1990-1991"), and Nikky Finney channeling the ancestors into the present ("The Girlfriend's Train"). Shockley closes with poem that sits with the terrible resonances of place names turned into a catalog of violence ("les milles").Find the full recordings of de la Torre, Chin, and Finney reading for the Poetry Center on Voca:Mónica de la Torre (2008)Marilyn Chin (1996)Nikky Finney (2019)You can also watch a 2019 recording of Evie Shockley reading work commissioned as part of the Poetry Center’s Art for Justice series.Have you checked out the new Voca interface? It’s easier than ever to browse readings, and individual tracks can be shared. Many readings now include captions and transcripts, and we're working hard to make sure every reading will have these soon.Full transcripts of every episode are available on Buzzsprout. Look for the transcript tab under each episode. Voca is now fully captioned, with interactive transcripts and captions available for all readings! Read more about the project here, or try out this new feature by visiting Voca.

Undisciplinary writer and translator JD Pluecker curates recordings that circle around themes of return, transformation, history, and the future. Pluecker introduces Joy Harjo finding what remains in the wreckage (“New Orleans”), Andrea Lawlor considering how one thing turns into another (excerpt from “Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl”), and C.D. Wright turning herself into an ancestor (“Our Dust”). Pluecker closes by reading “Return Unsettlement,” which asks whether anything is ever quite gone or has ever quite arrived.Enjoy the full recordings of Harjo, Lawlor, and Wright reading for the Poetry Center on Voca:Joy Harjo (1987)Andrea Lawlor (2019)C.D. Wright (2000)You can also watch a recording of JD Pluecker reading in 2019 as part of the language experimentation collective Antena Aire, in collaboration with Myriam Moscona. Have you checked out the new Voca interface? It’s easier than ever to browse readings, and individual tracks can be shared. Many readings now include captions and transcripts, and we're working hard to make sure every reading will have these soon.Full transcripts of every episode are available on Buzzsprout. Look for the transcript tab under each episode. Voca is now fully captioned, with interactive transcripts and captions available for all readings! Read more about the project here, or try out this new feature by visiting Voca.

Former U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera shares poems that consider the questions, what exactly is poetry? What does it do? Herrera crafts an expansive answer to these questions through Marvin Bell’s reflection on poetry as philosophy (“The Poem”), Denise Levertov’s engagement with truth in sacred spaces (“The Day the Audience Walked Out on Me, and Why”), and Lorna Dee Cervantes’s assertion that poetry is the force and form of resistance (“From the Bus to E.L. at Atascadero State Hospital”). To close, Herrera shares his poem “For George Floyd, Who Was a Great Man,” a work that encapsulates humanity, compassion, action, and protest.  You can listen to the full recordings of Bell, Levertov, and Cervantes reading for the Poetry Center on Voca:Marvin Bell (1977)Denise Levertov (1973) Lorna Dee Cervantes (1991)You can also enjoy two recordings of Juan Felipe Herrera on Voca, from 1993 and 2009.Have you checked out the new Voca interface? It’s easier than ever to browse readings, and individual tracks can be shared. Many readings now include captions and transcripts, and we're working hard to make sure every reading will have these soon.Full transcripts of every episode are available on Buzzsprout. Look for the transcript tab under each episode. Voca is now fully captioned, with interactive transcripts and captions available for all readings! Read more about the project here, or try out this new feature by visiting Voca.