Interesting People Reading Poetry

This special episode introduces a new ambient album by Andy Stermer, who composes all of our music. Of Modern Poetry is inspired by a selection of poetic masterpieces from the mid-19th through mid-20th centuries, all of which have been featured previously on this show. The seven compositions, arranged chronologically according to the date of each poem’s first publication, offer what we hope you&#8...

In this episode, novelist Lisa Ko reads “Don’t You Wonder, Sometimes?” by Tracy K. Smith. Ko’s first book, The Leavers , was a 2017 National Book Award finalist. Her most recent book, Memory Piece (Riverhead Books, 2024) was described in Electric Literature as “a poignant meditation on late-stage capitalism: what it means to exist in an age of surveillance and government tracking, what it means to...

This IPRP Poetry Playlist features a selection of archival recordings from PennSound , a project of the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing at the University of Pennsylvania. The PennSound website includes an extensive audio archive with free recordings of hundreds of poets reading their own work. https://open.spotify.com/episode/4LaSIL9xy50Zf8hhFutG7Y?si=rq4P94nZSemjjXV6CWMRtw Tracklist 1...

In this episode, Amy Dickinson reads “Say It” by Roland Flint. Dickinson wrote the beloved daily advice column “Ask Amy,” which appeared in newspapers across the country from 2003 until her retirement in June of 2024. She is also the author of two memoirs and a new Substack newsletter . https://open.spotify.com/episode/0Biu5xhk2gBgrbInN0mccP Roland Flint was born in Park River, North D...

In this IPRP Poetry Playlist, U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón reads three selections from the anthology You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World , out now from Milkweed Editions. The collection, edited and introduced by Limón, offers “fifty poems reflecting on our relationship to the natural world by our most celebrated contemporary writers.” Click here to learn more about the anthology,...

In this episode, Roy Foster reads “Sailing to Byzantium” by William Butler Yeats. Foster is Emeritus Professor of Irish History at the University of Oxford and the author of many books, including his classic, two-volume biography of Yeats, published in 1997 and 2003. In a review of the first volume published in the New York Review of Books , the Irish novelist John Banville wrote: “ W....

In this IPRP Poetry Playlist, our host Brendan Stermer reads three poems from his debut chapbook, Forgotten Frequencies , out now from North Dakota State University Press. The books were printed in a limited edition at The Braddock News Letterpress Museum in Braddock, ND and assembled by hand by students in the publishing program at North Dakota State University in Fargo. Forgotten Frequencies was...

In this episode, musician and writer Dessa reads an excerpt from “Natural Enemies of the Conch” by Alan Dugan. Dessa first gained prominence as a rapper with the Twin Cities hip hop collective Doomtree, but has since worked across many genres and creative disciplines. She has collaborated with the Minnesota Orchestra, published a memoir and poetry collections, and even hosted a BBC science podcast...

For each IPRP Poetry Playlist, we curate a selection of three poems, loosely thematically related, presented with musical score, but without any commentary or historical context. We encourage you to approach these short episodes with the same relaxed attitude you might take toward a playlist on a burnt CD, given to you by a friend, which you casually pop in on a long road trip. Don’t worry a...

In this episode, Tish Harrison Warren reads “Possible Answers to Prayer” by Scott Cairns. Warren is an Anglican priest and the author of two award-winning books, Liturgy of the Ordinary and Prayer in the Night . She also writes a weekly newsletter for the New York Times on “faith in private life and public discourse.”  https://open.spotify.com/episode/1AbkP0s1yJuIkhp82QU4lS “Possible Answers...

Vocalism, measure, concentration, determination, and the divine power to speak words; Are you full-lung’d and limber-lipp’d from long trial? from vigorous practice? from physique? –WALT WHITMAN What would it be like to experience a selection of poems with the same relaxed attitude you might take toward a playlist on a burnt CD, given to you by a friend, which you casually pop in on a l...

In this episode, Alissa Rubin reads an excerpt from the ancient Greek epic The Iliad . Rubin is a Senior International Correspondent for The New York Times. She worked previously as the Bureau Chief in Baghdad, Paris, and Kabul. In 2016, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting for “thoroughly reported and movingly written accounts giving voice to Afghan women who were f...

In this episode, Makoto Fujimura reads an excerpt from “Burnt Norton” by T. S. Eliot. Fujimura is a leading contemporary painter whose work fuses abstract expressionism with traditional Japanese painting styles. He is also the author of several books, including Art + Faith: A Theology of Making , out now from Yale University Press. https://open.spotify.com/episode/22qWbZwSKOZFHnuq7jxzb2 T. S. Elio...

In this episode, Theo Padnos reads “The Drunken Boat” by Arthur Rimbaud. Padnos is an American writer and journalist. In 2012, he was kidnapped and held captive for two years by an Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria. His new book about the experience, Blindfold: A Memoir of Capture, Torture, and Enlightenment , was described in the Atlantic as “the best of the genre, profound, poetic, and sowerful....

In this episode, Hrishikesh Hirway reads “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” by William Butler Yeats. Hirway is the creator and host of several acclaimed podcasts, including Home Cooking (with Samin Nosrat), The West Wing Weekly (with Joshua Malina), and Song Exploder (which is now also a Netflix original series). On top of all that, Hirway manages a career as a composer and recording artist....

In this episode, Bon Appétit Editor-in-Chief Dawn Davis reads “Sonnet 171” by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Davis joined Bon Appétit in November 2020 following a long career in book publishing. Through her visionary work at Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins, Davis oversaw the publication of numerous influential best sellers — from “The Pursuit of Happyness” by Chris Gardner to “The Known World” by...

In this episode, Grian Chatten reads “The Windhover” by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Chatten is the frontman of the Irish post-punk band Fontaines D.C., recently described by NME as “the new heroes of the rock resurrection.” The members of the group met while attending music college in Dublin and initially bonded over a shared love for Irish literature. Their second album, A Hero’s Dea...

In this episode, Alec Soth reads “Of Modern Poetry” by Wallace Stevens. Soth is a photographer based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has published over twenty-five books and has been called a “living legend” and “one of the most important photographers working today” by the Washington Post. https://open.spotify.com/episode/6U9XgyQuamdVdEDw1P9ZNm Soth’s recen...

In this episode, Sheryl Paul reads from “Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman. Paul is a counselor working in the tradition of Jungian depth psychology. She runs the popular blog and website, Conscious Transitions , and is the author, most recently, of The Wisdom of Anxiety: How Worry & Intrusive Thoughts Are Gifts to Help You Heal . Paul writes of anxiety not as a disorder to be eradic...

In this episode, Jennifer Crandall reads “Keeping Things Whole” by Mark Strand. Crandall is a documentary filmmaker and journalist. She is the creator, most recently, of Whitman, Alabama – a must-watch web series in which Alabama residents recite passages from Walt Whitman’s poem, “Song of Myself.” Crandall has described the project as “an experiment in using do...

In this episode, Robert Alter reads from his translation of the Song of Songs. Alter is a literary critic and translator based at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2018, he published a landmark, one-man translation of the entire Hebrew Bible – the culmination of over two decades of scholarship. https://open.spotify.com/episode/30aHgozRmfI887FcizwpPe The Song of Songs – sometimes referred...

In this episode, Enrique Martínez Celaya reads “Elegy for Ramón Sijé” by Miguel Hernández. Martínez Celaya is a world-renowned painter, sculptor, and the author of On Art & Mindfulness , among other books. He lives and works in Los Angeles. https://open.spotify.com/episode/65qUKBK1KAGjRdvaL1f57r Miguel Hernández (1910-1942) was an early 20th-century Spanish poet. The elegy featured in this epi...

In this episode, composer Libby Larsen reads “Wolf Song in Los Angeles” by Bill Holm. Larsen is one of the most prolific and most performed living American composers. Bill Holm (1943 – 2009) was a poet and essayist who lived in western Minnesota. Throughout the episode, you’ll hear excerpts from Larsen’s musical setting of “Wolf Song in Los Angeles” – performed by Clara Osowski , with...

In this episode, On Being Project founder and CEO Krista Tippett reads “God speaks to each of us as he makes us” by Rainer Maria Rilke. She shares how the poem gave her courage and resolve during the creation of her public radio show,  Speaking of Faith , in 2003. In the years since, Speaking of Faith has grown and evolved into The On Being Project , a media and public life initiative exploring th...

In this episode, U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar reads “Conversations about home (at the deportation centre)” by Warsan Shire and reflects on the many meanings of home. On November 6, 2018, Omar became the first Somali American, and one of the first two Muslim women elected to U.S. Congress. She represents Minnesota’s 5th congressional district. This interview was recorded in 2017, when Omar...