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In this episode, we continue our series on the villanelle with Patricia Smith's "XXXL." In this poem, Smith uses the constraints of the villanelle form to create a powerful portrait of familial love. Patricia Smith is the author of numerous collections of poetry, a winner of the National Book Award for The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems (Scribner, 2025), and a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts.

In this episode, we continue our villanelle series with the incredible formalist poet A.E. Stallings. Every form begs for a bending of the rules, sometimes in small ways, sometimes in big ways. We look here at how slight bends in the rules bring home the poem. For more on A.E. Stallings, see her biography at The Poetry Foundation. Thank you to Northwestern University Press for permission to read the poem. This poem comes from A.E. Stallings' remarkable collection of poems titled Olives. We encourage you to check it out. For another great villanelle of Stallings that is available online, see Daedal.

In this episode, we introduce the first villanelle in our three-part series on that poetic form. We begin with Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night," a poem that attempts to stave off the inevitability of mortality. To learn more about Dylan Thomas, visit the Poetry Foundation.

In this episode, we read one of Langston Hughes's most famous poems. We discuss Hughes's conversational style, how he evokes the topography of Harlem, and the way the poetic speaker addresses the complexity of the power dynamics in the classroom. You can read the text of this poem here. To learn more about Langston Hughes, visit the Poetry Foundation website. Thanks to Harold Ober Associates for granting us permission to read and discuss this poem.

As we prepare for the new school year, we turn to Walt Whitman's poem "When I Heard the Learned Astronomer." We discuss Whitman's influence, the effects of war, the role of poetry as Whitman saw it, and the importance of experiencing the world both in and beyond the classroom. When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer When I heard the learn’d astronomer, When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them, When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45479/when-i-heard-the-learnd-astronomer For a brief account of Whitman, see The Poetry Foundation. For all things Whitman, see The Whitman Archive. Image credit: "Walt Whitman by Mathew Brady, ca. 1865 - 1867." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 07 August 2026. http://www.whitmanarchive.org.

In this episode, Laura Evers (who has done so much work for this podcast), joins us to discuss the poem that drew her into poetry. We explore Katie Ford's haunting poem of longing, absence, and the desire to know, and we examine how her grammatical choices (including the absence of punctuation or breath marks) enhance the experience of reading and rereading the poem. "The Shroud of Turin" can be found in Katie Ford's first book of poems, Deposition. For more on Katie Ford, visit her website: https://www.fordkatie.com/ Thanks to Graywolf Press for permission to read the poem on this episode.

In this third installment of our series on the aubade, we feature a contrapuntal poem that explores various states of grief and loss. Tarfia Faizullah is the author of two poetry collections: Registers of Illuminated Villages (Graywolf, 2018) and Seam (Southern Illinois University Press, 2014). She is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships. To learn more about her work, visit her website. Thanks to SIU Press for granting us permission to read this poem on the podcast. _ To read this poem, click on this link.

This episode continues our series on the aubade (a morning love song) with a dramatic turn. Larkin reinvents the tradition as waking to the fact that every new day brings a person one day closer to death. To see the tradition that Larkin reimagines, see our previous episode on John Donne, "The Sun Rising." For the text of Larkin's "Aubade" see the Poetry Foundation. For more on Larkin, see the Poetry Foundation. Thanks to Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, as well as Faber and Faber, for permission to read Larkin's "Aubade" for this episode. Photo by Barry Wilkinson/Radio Times via Getty Images

In a special episode, we celebrate the release of Joanne Diaz's latest book, Electric Dress, by reading "The Face," a poem of double ekphrasis that reflects on the hope of tomorrow in the losses of today. To order the book Electric Dress, see Barrow Street Press here: https://barrowstreet.org/press/product/electric-dress-joanne-diaz/ For more on Joanne Diaz, see her faculty homepage: https://www.iwu.edu/english/faculty/diaz.html For more on the work of William Utermohlen, see this article and exhibition: https://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=utermohlen For the work of Catherine Drabkin, see her website: https://catherinedrabkin.com/

This episode begins a three-part series on the "aubade," a poem to greet the morning (often by wishing the morning away). We discuss Donne's many wonderful techniques and even recite a little Romeo and Juliet. Here is the poem: The Sun Rising By John Donne Busy old fool, unruly sun, Why dost thou thus, Through windows, and through curtains call on us? Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run? Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide Late school boys and sour prentices, Go tell court huntsmen that the king will ride, Call country ants to harvest offices, Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime, Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time. Thy beams, so reverend and strong Why shouldst thou think? I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink, But that I would not lose her sight so long; If her eyes have not blinded thine, Look, and tomorrow late, tell me, Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with me. Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday, And thou shalt hear, All here in one bed lay. She's all states, and all princes, I, Nothing else is. Princes do but play us; compared to this, All honor's mimic, all wealth alchemy. Thou, sun, art half as happy as we, In that the world's contracted thus. Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be To warm the world, that's done in warming us. Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere; This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44129/the-sun-rising For more on Donne: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/john-donne

This poem offers a humble love of the world and a leave-taking of it. It was found in the papers of Jane Mead (1958-2019), which were left to her great friend Kathleen Finneran (1957-2026), and it was published in the New Yorker in 2021 through Kathleen's efforts. The poem was read at the memorial for Mead in 2021 and then again at the funeral for Finneran in 2026. Here is the poem: I Wonder If I Will Miss the Moss —Jane Mead (1958-2019) I wonder if I will miss the moss after I fly off as much as I miss it now just thinking about leaving. There were stones of many colors. There were sticks holding both lichen and moss. There were red gates with old hand-forged hardware. There were fields of dry grass smelling of first rain then of new mud. There was mud, and there was the walking, all the beautiful walking, and it alone filled me— the smells, the scratchy grass heads. All the sleeping under bushes, once waking to vultures above, peering down with their bent heads the way they do, caricatures of interest and curiosity. Once too a lizard. Once too a kangaroo rat. Once too a rat. They did not say I belonged to them, but I did. Whenever the experiment on and of my life begins to draw to a close I’ll go back to the place that held me and be held. It’s O.K. I think I did what I could. I think I sang some, I think I held my hand out. For The New Yorker, see here. For a reflection on the poem by the poet Devin Kelly, see Kelly's Substack Ordinary Plots. For more on Jane Mead, see The Poetry Foundation. For the memorial service and the tribute by Kathleen Finneran, see Mead's personal webpage.

Today, joined by Professor Kirsten Lee, we read a poem about freedom written on the eve of the American Revolution by Phillis Wheatley, the first African American to publish a book of poetry. In praise to the new British Secretary of State, she guides him how to rule while tying an American love of Freedom to her own personal experience of enslavement. To the Right Honorable William, Earl of Dartmouth By Phillis Wheatley Hail, happy day, when, smiling like the morn, Fair Freedom rose New-England to adorn: The northern clime beneath her genial ray, Dartmouth, congratulates thy blissful sway: Elate with hope her race no longer mourns, Each soul expands, each grateful bosom burns, While in thine hand with pleasure we behold The silken reins, and Freedom's charms unfold. Long lost to realms beneath the northern skies She shines supreme, while hated faction dies: Soon as appear'd the Goddess long desir'd, Sick at the view, she languish'd and expir'd; Thus from the splendors of the morning light The owl in sadness seeks the caves of night. No more, America, in mournful strain Of wrongs, and grievance unredress'd complain, No longer shalt thou dread the iron chain, Which wanton Tyranny with lawless hand Had made, and with it meant t' enslave the land. Should you, my lord, while you peruse my song, Wonder from whence my love of Freedom sprung, Whence flow these wishes for the common good, By feeling hearts alone best understood, I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate Was snatch'd from Afric's fancy'd happy seat: What pangs excruciating must molest, What sorrows labour in my parent's breast? Steel'd was that soul and by no misery mov'd That from a father seiz'd his babe belov'd: Such, such my case. And can I then but pray Others may never feel tyrannic sway? For favours past, great Sir, our thanks are due, And thee we ask thy favours to renew, Since in thy pow'r, as in thy will before, To sooth the griefs, which thou did'st once deplore. May heav'nly grace the sacred sanction give To all thy works, and thou for ever live Not only on the wings of fleeting Fame, Though praise immortal crowns the patriot's name, But to conduct to heav'ns refulgent fane, May fiery coursers sweep th' ethereal plain, And bear thee upwards to that blest abode, Where, like the prophet, thou shalt find thy God. For more on Wheatley, see https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/phillis-wheatley For more on Professor Kirsten Lee, see her website: https://cla.auburn.edu/directory/kirsten-lee/

This episode brings together a collage of images to explore the meaning of time, the emergence of events from one to another, and the wonder of the unknown. For the full text of the poem, see here: https://mail.readwildness.com/25/zwart-rusting For more on the poet Jane Zwart, see her personal website: https://www.janezwart.com/ To see her new book and purchase a copy, see "Oddest & Oldest & Saddest & Best" at Orison Books: https://www.orisonbooks.com/product-page/oddest-oldest-saddest-best-poems-by-jane-zwart

In a short, simple, well-loved poem, Dinah Maria Craik names one aspect of friendship that many have found true. A great way to start the new year and launch the season. Find a friend and listen in. Friendship Oh, the comfort— the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person— having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.

In this episode, Phillis Levin reads "An Anthology of Rain," the title poem of her newest poetry collection. She guides us through the philosophical underpinnings of her poem, how it informs the book as a whole, and how the surfaces of things can tell us so much about their substance. Phillis Levin is the author of six poetry collections, including An Anthology of Rain. She is also the editor of The Penguin Book of the Sonnet: 500 Years of a Classic Tradition in English. Levin’s honors include a Fulbright Scholar Award to Slovenia, an Ingram Merrill Grant, the Richard Hugo Prize from Poetry Northwest, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Trust of Amy Lowell. To learn more about Phillis and her work, please visit her website. https://phillislevin.com Photo credit: Sigrid Estrada