Read Me a Poem

Amanda Holmes reads from Hafiz’s Little Book of Life, a new translation of the Persian mystic’s work by Erfan Mojib and Gary Gach. Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you’ll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman. This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Donald Hall’s “Ox Cart Man.” Read Hall’s essays “Remains” and “One Road” on our website. Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you’ll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman. This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Jim Harrison’s “Winter Creek.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you’ll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman. https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/8nforbyn370ml4wk51um5/264-harrison-winter-creek.mp3?rlkey=vk7joeqryhodt0qcd2aefif11&dl=0 This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Larry Levis’s “My Story in a Late Style of Fire.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you’ll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman. This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Pablo Neruda’s “I Explain a Few Things,” translated from the Spanish by Galway Kinnell. Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you’ll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman. This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Anne Sexton’s “Her Kind.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you’ll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman. This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Wislawa Szymborska’s “Consolation,” translated from the Polish by Clare Cavanagh. Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you’ll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman. This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Gwendolyn Brooks’s “The Bean Eaters.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you’ll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman. This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads Rainer Maria Rilke’s “The Watcher,” translated from the German by Stephanie Bastek. Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you’ll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman.This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. The Watcherby Rainer Maria RilkeI see the storms coming in the treesthat on swollen, balmy daysbeat at my anxious window,and hear the Distance saying thingsthat I can’t bear without a friend,can’t love without a sister.There goes the storm, a rearranger,goes through forest and through time,and everything is as though ageless:the landscape, like a verse in a psalm book,is truth and might and eternity.How small it is, what we wrestle with,what wrestles with us, how great;if we could let ourselves be more like things,be subdued by great storms—we would become vast and nameless.What we defeat is the Small,and the victory itself makes us small.The Eternal and Enormouswill not be bent by us.This is the Angel that appearedto the wrestlers of the Old Testament:when its adversary’s sinewsstrained like metal in the struggle,it felt them under its fingerslike the strings of deep melodies.Whoever was bested by this Angel—who so often renounced struggle—he goes righteous and uprightand great from that harsh hand,which embraced him like a sculptor.Victories do not entice him.This is how he grows: deep defeatby ever greater forces.Translated by Stephanie Bastek Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amanda Holmes reads José Garcia Villa’s “In My Desire to Be Nude.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you’ll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman.This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.