Elisa Gonzalez — To My Twenty-Four-Year-Old S...

Dante Micheaux’s rich and rollicking poem “Theologies for Korah” is written on the occasion of an infant’s baptism, but it’s anything but baby talk or bland instruction. Religious figures, rites, and symbols are proffered, not as liturgy or lore to be swallowed whole, eyes shut, ...  Show more

“How could there be a war in this city?” is the plaintive question that starts Oksana Makysymchuk’s “Arguments for Peace”. Like ours, the world of her poem holds both the “goodness of the universe” and “a foreign leader / warning of invasion”. She offers no pat answers for what t ...  Show more

The late poet Mary Oliver is among the most beloved writers of modern times. Amidst the harshness of life, she found redemption in the natural world and in beautiful, precise language. She won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award among her many honors — and published nu ...  Show more

What a searching, stimulating conversation this was. Elisa Gabbert joins the podcast to talk about a poem she and I have both long loved, Sylvia Plath's "Lady Lazarus."Elisa is a poet, critic, and essayist—and the author of several books. Her recent titles include Normal Distance ...  Show more

Elisa New believes anyone can have fun reading a poem. And that if you really want to have a blast, you shouldn't limit poetry to silent, solitary reading  - why not sing, recite, or perform it as has been the case for most of its history?

The Harvard English professor ...

An impassioned plea, a yearning for connection — the poem U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón wrote when she says all language failed her. Take in Ada's reading of her piece, “The End of Poetry” — and hear her read more of her work in the On Being episode, “To Be Made Whole.”Ada Limón i ...  Show more