The Daily Poem

Today’s poem is by Francis Russell " Frank " O'Hara (March 27, 1926 – July 25, 1966), an American writer, poet, and art critic. A curator at the Museum of Modern Art , O'Hara became prominent in New York City's art world. O'Hara is regarded as a leading figure in the New York School , an informal group of artists, writers, and musicians who drew inspiration from jazz, surrealism , abstract express...

Today’s poem is by Alicia Elsbeth Stallings (born July 2, 1968), an American poet, translator, and essayist. Stallings has published five books of original verse: Archaic Smile (1999), Hapax (2006), Olives (2012), Like (2018), and This Afterlife (2022). She has published verse translations of Lucretius 's De Rerum Natura ( The Nature of Things ) and Hesiod's Works and Days , both with Penguin Clas...

Today’s poem is by Musō Soseki (夢窓 疎石, 1275 – October 20, 1351), a Rinzai Zen Buddhist monk and teacher, and a calligraphist, poet and garden designer. The most famous monk of his time, he is also known as Musō Kokushi (夢窓国師, "national [Zen] teacher Musō"), an honorific conferred on him by Emperor Go-Daigo . [1] His mother was the daughter of Hōjō Masamura (1264–1268), seventh Shikken (reg...

Today’s poem is by Scott Cairns. Cairns is the author of ten collections of poetry, one collection of translations of Christian mystics, one spiritual memoir (now translated into Greek and Romanian), a book-length essay on suffering, and co-edited The Sacred Place with Scott Olsen, an anthology of poetry, fiction and nonfiction. It won the inaugural National Outdoor Book Award (Outdoor Literature...

Today’s poem is by Kathleen Norris (born July 27, 1947), an American poet and essayist. She is the author Dakota: A Spiritual Geography , The Cloister Walk (1996), The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and "Women's Work" (1998), and other books. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscr...

Today’s poem is by Theodore Huebner Roethke ( /ˈrɛtki/ RET-kee ; [1] May 25, 1908 – August 1, 1963), an American poet. He is regarded as one of the most accomplished and influential poets of his generation, having won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1954 for his book The Waking , and the annual National Book Award for Poetry on two occasions: in 1959 for Words for the Wind , [2] and posthumously...

Today’s poem is by Robert Herrick (baptised 24 August 1591 – buried 15 October 1674) [1] , a 17th-century English lyric poet and Anglican cleric . He is best known for Hesperides , a book of poems. This includes the carpe diem poem " To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time ", with the first line "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may". —Bio via Wikipedia This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss t...

Today’s poem is by William Butler Yeats [a] (13 June 1865 – 28 January 1939), an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and politician. One of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature , he was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish literary establishment who helped to found the Abbey Theatre . In his later years, he served two terms as a Senator of the Iri...

Today poem is by Wystan Hugh Auden ( /ˈwɪstən ˈhjuː ˈɔːdən/ ; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973 [1] ), a British-American poet . Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics , morals , love , and religion , and its variety in tone , form , and content . Some of his best known poems are about love, such as " Funeral Blues "; on political and...

Today’s poem is by Robert Louis Stevenson (born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson ; 13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894), a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as Treasure Island , Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde , Kidnapped and A Child's Garden of Verses . -Bio via Wikipedia This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subsc...

Today’s poem is by Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks (June 7, 1917 – December 3, 2000), an American poet, author, and teacher. Her work often dealt with the personal celebrations and struggles of ordinary people in her community. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry on May 1, 1950, for Annie Allen , [1] making her the first African American to receive a Pulitzer Prize . [2] [3] -Bio via Wikipedia This i...

Robert L. Hass (born March 1, 1941) is an American poet. He served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995 to 1997. [1] He won the 2007 National Book Award [2] and shared the 2008 Pulitzer Prize [3] for the collection Time and Materials: Poems 1997–2005. [4] In 2014 he was awarded the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets . [5] Bio via Wikipedia To support this show, ple...

Today’s poem is by Christian Wiman , an American poet and editor born in 1966 and raised in the small west Texas town of Snyder. [1] He graduated from Washington and Lee University and has taught at Northwestern University, Stanford University, Lynchburg College in Virginia, and the Prague School of Economics. In 2003, he became editor of the oldest American magazine of verse, Poetry , [2] a role...

Today’s poem is by John Edward Masefield OM ( /ˈmeɪsˌfiːld, ˈmeɪz-/ ; 1 June 1878 – 12 May 1967), an English poet and writer, and Poet Laureate from 1930 until 1967. Among his best known works are the children's novels The Midnight Folk and The Box of Delights , and the poems The Everlasting Mercy and " Sea-Fever ". Bio via Wikipedia This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with oth...

Today’s poem is by James Raymond Daniels (born 1956 in Detroit , Michigan ), an American poet and writer. He lives in Pittsburgh with his wife, the writer Kristin Kovacic. Daniels was on the faculty of the creative writing program at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania , from 1981-2021, where he was the Thomas Stockham Baker University Professor of English. He taught in the low...

Today is Memorial Day so in this episode we present three notable poems from among the many memorable poems of the World War I era. Memory eternal to all of the brave men and women who gave up their lives in service of their country. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

Today’s poem is by Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (née Kroeber ; /ˈkroʊbər lə ˈɡwɪn/ KROH-bər lə GWIN ; [1] October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018), an American author best known for her works of speculative fiction , including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe , and the Earthsea fantasy series. Bio via Wikipedia This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers o...

Today poem is from Sir John Betjeman CBE ( /ˈbɛtʃəmən/ ; 28 August 1906 – 19 May 1984), an English poet, writer, and broadcaster. He was Poet Laureate from 1972 until his death. He was a founding member of The Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architecture , helping to save St Pancras railway station from demolition. He began his career as a journalist and ended it as one of...

Today’s poem is by Paul Laurence Dunbar (June 27, 1872 – February 9, 1906), an American poet, novelist, and short story writer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries . . . Dunbar became the first African-American poet to earn national distinction and acceptance. The New York Times called him "a true singer of the people – white or black." [35] Frederick Douglass once referred to Dunbar as, "one...

Today’s poem comes from American poet Jane Kenyon, who would have been seventy-five today had she not died in 1995 at the age of forty-seven. Her work is often characterized as simple, spare, and emotionally resonant. Kenyon was the second wife of poet, editor, and critic Donald Hall who made her the subject of many of his poems. Bio via Wikipedia. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discus...

What better way to bring back The Daily Poem than with a poem by one of my favorite poets, Seamus Heaney. Heaney was an Irish poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature . [1] [2] Among his best-known works is Death of a Naturalist (1966), his first major published volume. Heaney was and is still recognised as one of the principal contributors to poetry in Irela...

After a too-long hiatus, T he Daily Poem is coming back with new episodes every week day, starting Monday, May 22. As a small taste, click play to hear a wonderful poem from the great English poet, Cecil Day Lewis, and a little about what to expect from the show’s re-launch. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailyp...

Joy Harjo  ( /ˈhɑːrdʒoʊ/   HAR-joh ; born May 9, 1951) is an American poet, musician, playwright, and author. She is the incumbent  United States Poet Laureate , the first  Native American  to hold that honor. She is also only the second Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to serve three terms. Harjo is a member of the  Muscogee Nation  (Este Mvskokvlke) and belongs to  Oce Vpofv  ( Hickory Ground...

Christina Georgina Rossetti  (5 December 1830 – 29 December 1894) was an English writer of  romantic , devotional and children's poems, including " Goblin Market " and "Remember". She also wrote the words of two Christmas carols well known in Britain: " In the Bleak Midwinter ", later set by  Gustav Holst , Katherine Kennicott Davis, and  Harold Darke , and " Love Came Down at Christmas ", also se...

William Blake  (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the  poetry  and visual art of the  Romantic Age . What he called his " prophetic works " were said by 20th-century critic  Northrop Frye  to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of...