Words by Winter

Send us a textAnyone who thinks it's an insult to describe someone as a "former comedian" has clearly never stood alone in front of a crowd of people with the intention of making them laugh. Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry.  Today’s poem, which I'm calling What Is, is by the Persian poet Jalal Al-din Muhammad Rumi, and is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.

Send us a textIt's a Poetry Snack, featuring Arna Bontemps.Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry.  Today's poem, Length of Moon, is in the public domain and was written by Arna Bontemps, who was  part of the incredible and influential Harlem Renaissance movement of Black artists nearly a century ago. Bontemps was a poet, novelist, historian, anthologist and archivist of Black cultural heritage. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.

Send us a textWhen you think of those you most love, how do they come to you? In voice or looks or scent? In touch?Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry.  Today’s poem, The Saint’s First Wife Said, is by poet, critic and public artist GE Patterson, and can be found in his first collection, Tug. It's featured here with kind permission of the poet. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.

Send us a textIt's a Poetry Snack, featuring Sara Teasdale.Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, February Twilight,  is by Sara Teasdale and is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.

Send us a textSometimes a poem takes your breath away with the gorgeous sweep of its memory, and by its refusal to look away.  Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, love & the memory of it, by Jay Hopler, is featured here with kind permission of the poet. Jay Hopler’s new book, Still Life, will be out from McSweeney’s in April. I’ve preordered it and you should too.  Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.

Send us a textIt's another poetry snack with Robert Frost, a New Englander whose poems often center on that solitary, sensory landscape.Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, by Robert Frost, is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com. 

Send us a textA listener named Esty writes in about a tough work situation. Work, even work we love, takes up so much of our energy and time, and when things go south, it's painful. I went in search of a poem to help Esty through. Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem is The World We Make, by Alfred Grant Walton. I searched and searched for how to obtain copyright permission but I couldn’t find any information – if someone knows, please let me know.. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.

Send us a textToday's poetry snack is adapted from a poem by Carl Sandburg.Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry.  The original version of today's poem (below) is titled A Father to His Son, by Carl Sandburg, and is in the public domain.  Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com. (Original, unadapted version of the poem)A Father to His Son, by Carl SandburgA father sees his son nearing manhood.What shall he tell that son?"Life is hard; be steel; be a rock."And this might stand him for the stormsand serve him for humdrum monotonyand guide him among sudden betrayalsand tighten him for slack moments."Life is a soft loam; be gentle; go easy."And this too might serve him.Brutes have been gentled where lashes failed.The growth of a frail flower in a path uphas sometimes shattered and split a rock.A tough will counts. So does desire.So does a rich soft wanting.Without rich wanting nothing arrives.Tell him too much money has killed menand left them dead years before burial:the quest of lucre beyond a few easy needshas twisted good enough mensometimes into dry thwarted worms.Tell him time as a stuff can be wasted.Tell him to be a fool every so oftenand to have no shame over having been a foolyet learning something out of every follyhoping to repeat none of the cheap folliesthus arriving at intimate understandingof a world numbering many fools.Tell him to be alone often and get at himselfand above all tell himself no lies about himselfwhatever the white lies and protective frontshe may use against other people.Tell him solitude is creative if he is strongand the final decisions are made in silent rooms.Tell him to be different from other peopleif it comes natural and easy being different.Let him have lazy days seeking his deeper motives.Let him seek deep for where he is born natural.Then he may understand Shakespeareand the Wright brothers, Pasteur, Pavlov,Michael Faraday and free imaginationsBringing changes into a world resenting change.He will be lonely enoughto have time for the workhe knows as his own.

Send us a textToday's featured poem, Wondrous, encompasses so much about life as a child and life as a grownup. That long tunnel of years between childhood and the point at which you look back on it and think Now I know why my mother was crying, because you yourself now cry at the same thing.Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, Wondrous, by Sarah Freligh, is from her book Sad Math, published by Moon City Press, and was read with the poet’s kind permission. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.

Send us a textIt's a poetry snack, with Robert Frost, a New Englander whose poems often center on that solitary, sensory landscape.Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry.  Today’s poem, My November Guest, by Robert Frost, is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.