“Remembering the First World War”: Our first poem details the life of a veteran who managed to survive the carnage and reflects on–or tries not to reflect on–his specific experiences during the war.  The next two poems depict civilians beginning to come to terms with their memories of the suffering shared throughout England.  Edmund Blunden, “The Veteran.”  Ursula Roberts, “The Cenotaph.”  Philip Johnstone, “High Wood.”  Our theme music is Philip Aaberg’s “Going-to-the-Sun” from his CD Live from Montana (available at sweetgrassmusic.com) and used with the kind permission of Mr. Aaberg.

“Unrequited Love (Part Two)”: A previous episode in March ’23 dealt with this same theme and featured poems by both men and women.  This episode considers unrequited love primarily from the woman’s point of view.  Guys in my audience may need to listen in.  Ellen Bass, “Can’t Get Over Her,” from Mules of Love (BOA Editions, 2002).  Sappho, “Fragment # 31 (Ode to Anactoria),” translator Michael R. Burch (thehypertexts.com/Sappho Longer Poems in Translations by Michael R. Burch.htm), and read with the kind permission of the translator.  Sharon Olds, “Crazy,” from Stag’s Leap (Knopf 2012), and read with the kind permission of the author.  The show’s theme...

“Wandering and Roving”: When you wander in the woods, how do you decide which way to go when you arrive at a fork in your path?  The first of today’s poems offers a playful response to that question, and the other poems also reflect in various ways on the act of wandering.  Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken.”  John Clare, “The Moors.”  Lord Byron, “So We’ll Go No More a Roving.”  Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Recuerdo.”  The show’s theme music is Philip Aaberg’s “Going-to-the-Sun,” from his CD Live from Montana (sweetgrassmusic.com) and used with the kind permission of Philip Aaberg.  If you have...

“Exile and Return”: What is it like to try to enter and exit Middle Eastern countries, especially Palestine?  Today’s poems offer glimpses, even before the most recent spasm of violence that ripped it apart in October 2023.  Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, “Upon Arrival” and “Immigrant,” from Water and Salt (Red Hen Press, 2017).  Mosab Abu Toha, “Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear” and “Forever Homeless,” from Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear (City Lights Books, 2022). The show’s theme music is Philip Aaberg’s “Going-to-the-Sun,” from his CD Live from Montana (sweetgrassmusic.com) and used with the kind permission of Philip Aaberg.  If you have any...

“One Word”: The poems on today’s show implicitly urge us to consider how strange language is when we examine it up close.  Each of today’s poems puzzle over an individual word.  Billy Collins, “Tension,” from Aimless Love: New and Selected Poems (Random House, 2013).  Shakespeare, “Sonnet 135.”  Robert Wrigley, “Lovely,” from The True Account of Myself as a Bird (Penguin Books, 2022), used by kind permission of the author.  The show’s theme music is Philip Aaberg’s “Going-to-the-Sun,” from his CD Live from Montana (sweetgrassmusic.com) and used with the kind permission of Philip Aaberg.  If you have any suggestions, corrections, questions regarding the show, please contact me, Brian...

“Three Controversial Musicians”: Today’s three poems spotlight three individuals known for their musical talents, as well as the controversy they provoked.  Naomi Shihab Nye, “Cross That Line,” from You and Yours (BOA Editions, 2011), used by kind permission of the author.  Frank O’Hara, “The Day Lady Died,” from Lunch Poems (City Lights Books, 1964).  William Matthews, “Mingus at the Half Note,” from Search Party: Collected Poems, Sebastian Matthews and Stanley Plumly, eds. (Houghton Mifflin, 2004), read with kind permission of the William Matthews estate.  The show’s theme music is Philip Aaberg’s “Going-to-the-Sun,” from his CD Live from Montana (sweetgrassmusic.com) and used with the kind permission of Philip Aaberg. ...

“Gifts”: One poet recalls her complex strategies as a teen gift-giver, a second recalls the gift his parents bestowed on him when he was eleven and about to move away from home, and the third imagines the circumstances in which her father gave a gift to her mother before they were married, before they became her parents.  Brenda Shaughnessy, “A Mix Tape: ‘Don’t You (Forget About Me),'” from So Much Synth (Copper Canyon Press, 2016).  Seamus Heaney, “The Conway Stewart,” from Selected Poems 1988-2013 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014).  Eavan Boland, “The Black Lace Fan My Mother Gave Me,” from Outside History: Selected Poems 1980-1990 (W, W....

“A Redwood, an Ancient Orchard, a Sequoia”: Do you have a favorite tree you pay special attention to when you take a routine walk?  Is it older than you?  We project so many attributes on to trees, including longevity and strength.  We develop an emotional attachment to trees.  Today’s episode considers such attachments and features two poems by Dana Gioia: “Becoming a Redwood” and “Planting a Sequoia.”  Both are included in Dana Gioia’s 99 Poems: New and Selected (Graywolf Press, 2016) and used with the kind permission of the author.   Also included are brief passages from the final book of Homer’s Odyssey, translated by Robert...

“Running on Empathy”: Three authors display various degrees of empathy in their depictions of Abraham Lincoln.  Walt Whitman, prose passages from Specimen Days, and “O Captain! My Captain.”  Kathleen Flenniken, “To Ease My Mind,” from Famous (U. of Nebraska Press, 2006), and used with kind permission of the author.  Leigh Stein, “Lincoln, Abraham, Melancholy Of,” from What To Miss When (New York: Soft Skull, 2021), and used with kind permission of the author.  Some historical background information provided by Joshua Wolf Shenk, Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness (2005); David Reynolds, Abe: Abraham Lincoln in His Times (2020); Ron Chernow, Grant (2017).  The show’s theme music is...

“Mysterious Encounters”: Three sing-songy poems are featured on today’s episode.  All three depict encounters between two individuals: all three resist our efforts to make total sense of their motives and actions.  We may think we know what happens between the couples, but the poems seem to run ahead of our ability to catch up to them and make complete sense of them.  Robert Burns, “Coming Through the Rye.”  John Keats, “La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad.”  Padraic Colum: “She Moved Through the Fair.”  The show’s theme music is Philip Aaberg’s “Going-to-the Sun,” from his CD Live from Montana, available at sweetgrassmusic.com and used with Mr. Aaberg’s...

“Why Serve?: First World War Poems of Internal Conflicts”: Young men in the 19 teens attempted to rationalize whether serving in the military during wartime was the right thing to do.  What’s in it for them?  Are they under peer pressure to enlist?  What do they see as the likely outcome if they do enlist?  Their answers are not predictable.  W.B. Yeats, “An Irish Airman Foresees His Death,” Edward Thomas, “As the Team’s Head Brass,” Wilfred Owen, “Disabled.”  Various anthologies of First World War Poetry or devoted to work by the individual author include these poems.  The show’s theme music...

“Children Thinking”: This episode features the voices of children–filtered through adult poets–in three poems that express a variety of insights.  These poems may prompt you to wonder, did you once think like these three children?  The poems are read in this order: William Wordsworth, “We Are Seven” (originally published in 1798).  Elizabeth Bishop, “In the Waiting Room,” from The Complete Poems 1927-1979 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1979, 1983).  Seamus Heaney, “Death of a Naturalist,” from Opened Ground: Selected Poems 1966-1996 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998).  The show’s theme music is Philip Aaberg’s “Going-to-the Sun,” from his CD Live from Montana (available at Sweetgrassmusic.com) and used with kind permission of Philip...

“Desk Jobs”: Did you ever have a job you abruptly quit soon after it began?  Why did you do that?  The first three lines of our first poem refer to a job the speaker quit after just one shift.  The next two poems feature office interactions between the speaker and a work colleague and boss.  Dorianne Laux, “What I Wouldn’t Do,” from What We Carry (BOA Editions, 1994), and used with the kind permission of the author.  Deborah Garrison, “Superior,” from A Working Girl Can’t Win (Random House, 1998), and used with kind permission of the author.  Stephen Dunn, “The Last Hours,” from Different Hours (Norton,...

“Manual Labor”: What do you remember from your first paid job? Did you develop any work-habits that you carried into adulthood? From your twenties on, has much of your identity been shaped by your work? Poems on this and next month’s episodes offer a variety of perspectives on work. Three poems are featured: Jericho Brown’s “Labor”, from The New Testament (Copper Canyon Press, 2016). Seamus Heaney’s “Thatcher,” from  Opened Ground: Selected Poems 1966-1996 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998). Mary Robinson, “London’s Summer Morning.” The show’s theme music is Philip Aaberg’s “Going-to-the-Sun,” from his CD Live from Montana (available at sweetgrassmusic.com) and used...

“Swimming”: We dive in with two action-packed excerpts from ancient poetic narratives. Both depict heroic swimmers moving through dangerous waters. This episode concludes with a contemporary American poet’s solitary naked swim in a pond in the early morning mist. Homer, The Odyssey (trans. Robert Fitzgerald), from Book V, lines 403-408, 415-437, 441-486. Beowulf (trans. Seamus Heaney), lines 506-510, 515-518, 532-581 (Norton, 2000). Maxime Kumin, “Morning Swim,” from Selected Poems 1960-1990 (Norton), used by kind permission of the Maxine Kumin Literary Trust. {Splash!, by Howard Means, provided useful, entertaining context.} The show’s theme music is Philip Aaberg’s “Going-to-the-Sun,” from his CD Live from Montana (available at sweetgrassmusic.com) and used with kind permission of...

“Meta-Verse”: The four poems on this episode make a virtue out of being self-conscious.  Each poem comments on the very poem we’re reading.  The poem pulls back the curtain and reveals the composing process.  Or at least that’s what the poem pretends to do.  Billy Collins, “The Suggestion Box,” from Aimless Love: New and Selected Poems (Random House, 2013).  Stephen Dunn, “Bad,” from The Not Yet Fallen World: New and Selected Poems (Norton, 2022).  W. B. Yeats, “When You Are Old.”  Lawrence Raab, “Request,” from Visible Signs (Penguin, 2003) and used with kind permission of the author.  The show’s theme music is Philip Aaberg’s “Going-to-the-Sun,” from...

“Where Is My Home?” (Part 2): The four poems on this episode address this question from a variety of perspectives: home as an imaginary place; home valued for the quality of one’s neighbors; home as a portable existence, a van; and home as the indoor / outdoor zone where multiple generations in a family live together over many years.  W. B. Yeats, “The Lake Isle of Innisfree.”  T’ao Ch’ien, “Moving House,” from A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems, translated by Arthur Waley (Knopf, 1919).  Linds Sanders, “Those Places We Melt Into,” from Quibble Lit, Issue 4: Muddle, Summer 2022 (see lindssanders.com), and used...

“Where Is My Home?”: Do you carry in your mind images of a former landscape you lived in, an extended area you called home?  The first poem is spoken in the voice of Robinson Crusoe as a old man back in England, wondering if this island of his origin, the place where his life will come to a close, is truly his home.  Or was he more at home when cast away on his other unnamed, totally remote island?  Elizabeth Bishop, “Crusoe in England,” from The Complete Poems 1927-1979 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1979, 1983).  Our second poem depicts Irish expatriates in...

"Frederick and Anna Murray Douglass": Though Frederick Douglass grew up not knowing his exact birthdate and even uncertain just how old he was, historians presume he was born in February 1818.  Douglass wrote, "I do not remember to have ever met a slave who could tell of his birthday."  His master "deemed all such inquiries on the part of a slave improper and impertinent, and evidence of a restless spirit."  The first poem sampled on this episode, Paul Dunbar's 1896 "Frederick Douglass," depicts the former slave turned writer, orator, and powerful force for a wide range of civil rights in a heroic light.  The following two poems lower the pedestal on which Dunbar had placed him and offer insights into the private lives of Frederick and his first wife Anna Murray Douglass.  What would it have been like to be the overlooked wife to a man so frequently absent from home and so immersed in the historical moment?  Both are persona poems, the first in the voice of Anna: M. Nzadi Keita, "Stirring," from Brief Evidence of Heaven: Poems from the life of Anna Murray Douglass (Whirlwind Press, 2014), available at spdbooks.org and used with kind permission of the author.  The second poem is in the voice of Frederick Douglass himself: Evie Shockley, "from The Lost Letters of Frederick Douglass," from the new black (Wesleyan UP, 2011), and used with kind permission of the author.  (The show's theme music is Philip Aaberg's "Going-to-the Sun," from his CD Live from Montana, available at sweetgrassmusic.com, and used with kind permission of Philip Aaberg.)    

"Imagining Our Parents Before We Were Born": What do you know about the life of either of your parents before you were born?  The three contemporary poems featured on this episode suggest the poets knew just a few facts, perhaps derived from family lore.  Then they speculated or fabricated the rest to achieve some coherent understanding of who their parents were before they became parents.  The poems are read in this order: Philip Levine, "The Mercy," from The Mercy: Poems (Knopf, 2000).  Evan Boland, "The Black Lace Fan My Mother Gave Me," from Outside History: Selected Poems 1980-1990 (W. W. Norton and Company, 1991).  Sharon Olds, "I Go Back To May 1937," from Strike Sparks: Selected Poems 1980-2002 (Knopf, 2004), read with kind permission of the author.  The show's theme music is Philip Aaberg's "Going-to-the-Sun," from his CD Live from Montana (available at Sweetgrassmusic.com) and used with kind permission of Philip Aaberg.