Poetry Centered

Elizabeth Bradfield brings together recordings of poets connected to Provincetown, Massachusetts, but linked more deeply by their acts of attention—to human community and to the more-than-human world. She shares Olga Broumas’s meditation on grief in the body (“The Massacre”), Mark Doty’s simultaneous engagement with the real and the metaphoric (“Description”), and Mark Wunderlich’s tongue-in-cheek...

Soham Patel shares poems that each speak to “you,” finding in the second-person pronoun a way to explore difficult subjects. She introduces Mark Strand asking questions of his deceased father (“Elegy for My Father”), Kazim Ali addressing a past self in a time of transformation (“Gallery”), and Yanyi considering the fragmentary world alongside the beloved (“Beginning of Spring”). Patel closes with...

Richard Blanco curates poems that look to language as a spiritual and psychological home, a center from which we make sense of reality. He introduces Ada Limón confronting the limits of what a poem can do (“The End of Poetry”), Robert Hass balancing lyric with narrative to reveal how language helps us understand our lives (“Meditation at Lagunitas”), and Heather McHugh demonstrating a way to concl...

Eduardo Martínez-Leyva considers what it means to be a good ancestor, to live and work with the desire to comfort those who will follow us in their own trying times. He shares Gloria Anzaldúa modeling the mixed languages of the border (“mujer cacto”), Rigoberto González leading the gaze to strange beauty (“Walking by the Panteón San Franciscano”), and Adrienne Rich showing the way to walk away fro...

Laura Da’ selects poems that report back to us with forthright courage She introduces James Welch speaking with a ringing sense of sovereignty (“In My First Hard Springtime”), Saretta Morgan crossing thresholds of space and perspective (“Consequences upon arrival (i)”), and Lena Khalaf Tuffaha resolving to speak and continue speaking (“To Be Self-Evident”). Da’ closes with “A High Bank to Spare th...

Asa Drake introduces poems that illustrate the long line’s possibilities for creating meaning and connection. She shares Saretta Morgan demonstrating silence and expansiveness (“Dominant orientation lights a corridor wide as Mexico's northern border”), Jennifer Chang exploring distance between speaker and listener (“Dialogues (Against Literature)”), and Solmaz Sharif delving into precision vi...

Prageeta Sharma selects recordings by poets who shaped her as a writer, and who have also shaped the landscape of contemporary American poetry by blending a sense of intimacy with direct address. She shares Ai inhabiting a persona that mixes sass and ancient knowledge (“Twenty-Year Marriage”), Michael S. Harper offering a testament spoken to rather than about a historical figure (“Dear John, Dear...

Lawrence-Minh Bùi Davis curates poems that illuminate characteristics of refugee poetics. He introduces Mai Der Vang on the displacement of the self (“Dear Exile”), Monica Sok on the contradictions inherent in being a refugee in the nation that caused the initial wound (“Americans Dancing in the Heart of Darkness”), and Ocean Vuong on the desire for belonging that can never be fulfilled (“Of Thee...

Philip Metres introduces poems that speak to the enduring work of poetry to carry us toward life. He shares W.S. Merwin reflecting on how we not only survive but live (“The River of Bees”), William Stafford invoking the inner journeys we each must take (“Peace Walk”), and Natalie Diaz demonstrating the way poetry can hold us amidst pain (“My Brother at 3 A.M.”). Metres closes with his poem “To Go...

July Westhale shares poems that unfold into moments of clarity and questioning. They introduce Carl Phillips’ reflection on truth (“Continuous Until We Stop”), Linda Gregg’s complex and hard-won simplicity (“What If the World Stays Far Off”), and Fanny Howe’s depiction of the human experience underscored by the natural world (“At Baron’s Court”). Westhale closes with a new poem, “I’m Fine, Thanks....

Radical Reversal is a program that installs performance and recording spaces in detention centers and correctional facilities where they conduct poetry workshops, seminars in music and music production, readings, and performances. Following up on a bonus episode from April 2023 , Radical Reversal co-founder Randall Horton introduces us to poetry and music from five youth writers and performers at...

Samyak Shertok curates poems that shift between image and narrative, between sound, silence, and simile as they create something wholly new. He introduces Joy Harjo testing the line between being an eyewitness and witnessing to (“Deer Dancer”), Li-Young Lee looking for the beloved everywhere (“Echo and Shadow”), and John Murillo braiding a complex tapestry from memory and remembering (“Upon Readin...

Dawn Lundy Martin selects poems of urgency, tension, and devotion. She shares Daniel Borzutzky responding to massacres with a poem that must be written (“Written after a Massacre in the Year 2018”), francine j. harris negotiating what can be contained and what cannot (“in case”), and Ada Limón choosing astounding devotion ("State Bird"). Martin closes with an excerpt from “A Fable of the...

Leila Chatti chooses poems illuminated by a heart left often to life here on Earth. She introduces us to Linda Gregg’s fierce and incandescent honesty (“There She Is”), Lucille Clifton’s embrace of lightness amidst struggle (“sorrows”), and Jane Hirshfield’s distillation of silence and attention (“The World Loved by Moonlight”). To close, Chatti reads her poem “I went out to hear”—an affirmation f...

Samuel Ace introduces poems that speak to today with raw honesty, truthfulness, and bravery. He shares Angel Dominguez wrestling with atrocity and empathy (“Dear Diego, Tell me what you know of stars”), Ilya Kaminsky braiding complicity with grief for the future (“In a Time of Peace”), and Layli Long Soldier drawing us into the meaning of apology (“WHEREAS I heard a noise I thought was a sneeze”)....

Harmony Holiday selects poems that shed the skin of nostalgia, testing the boundaries of cruelty as they push toward clarity. She introduces Robert Hass accepting moments of error (“A Story About the Body”), Ai recognizing the humanity of the evil-doer (“Salome”), and Allen Ginsberg acknowledging his mother’s scars as he grieves (“Kaddish”). Holiday closes with her poem “Tale of the Sudden Sweetne...

In our fiftieth episode, Nicole Sealey chooses poems that speak to the lasting power of big ideas offered generously to one’s community. She shares Toi Derricotte forecasting the spirit of Cave Canem (“I say hello, oracle, kind mother...”), Cornelius Eady responding to racism with defiant love (“Gratitude”), and Patricia Smith reminding us that poetry is a life-affirming art (“Building Nicole’s Ma...

Kwame Dawes introduces poems that interrogate loss and violence, transforming them in the flame of irony, elegy, and empathy. He discusses Lucille Clifton distilling “pure moments of tremendous poetry” (“lu 1958”), Michael S. Harper offering a haunting conclusion that serves as both memorial and gift (“We Assume: On the Death of our Son, Reuben Masai Harper”), and Terrance Hayes treading the line...

Mackenzie Polonyi selects poems that engender bell hooks’ idea of love as a verb—a mycorrhizal, persistent, and complicated act linking us to past and present, near and far. She discusses Lucille Clifton on the boundlessness of light (“i was born with twelve fingers”), Fady Joudah’s adaptation of Hussein Barghouthi on the music of what it means to be human (“I Dreamed You”), and Victoria Chang on...

Abigail Chabitnoy curates poems that dwell in fields of searching, connecting, and being. She introduces Michael Wasson communing with those who are no longer breathing (“Aposiopesis [or, The Field between the Living & the Dead]”), Jean Valentine considering the moment and its boundaries (“To my soul”), and Saretta Morgan writing into love over many years (“Dearth-light”). To close, Chabitnoy...

Diego Báez introduces us to three Gabriels connected by themes of reclamation and new beginnings. He shares Gabriel Dozal approaching the US-Mexico border with humor (“You Look at Crossers, You Look Just Like Them”), Gabriel Palacios unpacking narratives of inheritance and race (“The Friar’s Daughter’s Mother”), and Jimmy Santiago Baca experiencing the birth of his son, Gabriel (“Child of the Sun—...

Valerie Hsiung selects poems that disorient as they open us to the vital, visceral present. She introduces Roberto Tejada and the poem as a breaking fever (“Kill Time Objective”), Jennifer Elise Foerster as a channel for a multiplicity of lost voices (“Hokkolen: I become the canyon, its dreaming eye”), and Mei-mei Berssenbrugge narrowing the senses to expand what remains (“Slow Down Now”). To clos...

Geffrey Davis selects recordings that reveal the bold, risky, and relentless work of attention and connection that poetry undertakes. He shares Lisel Mueller pushing against the limits of human understanding (“What the Dog Perhaps Hears”), Carl Phillips exploring change as more than calamity (“Continuous Until We Stop”), and Ross Gay asserting that pain and grief live alongside gratitude (“Catalog...

Vickie Vértiz curates poems that chart a path to a collective future where we can survive crises, connect with others, and see life’s beauty. She introduces Khadijah Queen looking to words as weapons amidst grief (“bloodroot,” “Dear fear…”), Lehua M. Taitano moving through the luminous ocean of time (“Queer Check-Ins”), and Angel Dominguez breaking through the world’s isolation (“What Does the Fut...

Eugenia Leigh introduces poems that speak from a particular moment into our own time, offering possibility amidst struggle. She shares John Murillo’s engagement with resistance and reality (“Enter the Dragon”), Monica Sok’s truth-telling about genocide (“Tuol Sleng”), and Angel Dominguez’s joyful protest against capitalism. Leigh closes with her poem “This City,” which ends with renewal. Watch the...