[encore] 1026: Ode to Bones by Lynne Thompson

Today’s poem is On Being Told I Should Write A Memoir by Jan-Henry Gray. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Today’s poem excavates childhood memories in a way only a poem can — and it enacts the fragmentation, the piece-iness, of memory. I ...  Show more

Today’s poem is Liquefying by Chloe Yelena Miller. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Maggie writes… “Poets use language the way an artist uses paint, the way sculptors use clay. It’s our material. We have to use it wisely, not only as craftspeople but as ...  Show more

Today we pay tribute, with poems by Andrea Cohen and Elizabeth Alexander, to the indispensable golden wonder.

Carmen Giménez’s poem “Ars Poetica” is a stunning waterfall of words, a torrent of dozens of short statements that begin with “I” or “I’m.” As you listen to them, let an answering cascade of questions fill up your mind. What does this series of confessions reveal to you about poe ...  Show more

After an 11 year hiatus, Poetry Week has returned. Weather: "Fix-Its (and Favours)" by luggage Original episode art by Jessica Hayworth Read episode transcripts 2025-26 TOUR DATES Tix on sale now! UNLICENSED Season 2 is here! Only on AudiblePre-order the Welcome to Night Vale Rol ...  Show more

In his poem “You Who Never Arrived,” Rainer Maria Rilke suggests that we can mourn love as an unrealized possibility, and see this loss signified everywhere in the ordinary objects of the external world. In “Be Ahead of All Parting” (II.13 from his “Sonnets to Orpheus”), he seems ...  Show more