PoetryNow: Recent Episodes
Poetry Foundation
PoetryNow is a weekly four-minute radio series featuring some of today’s most accomplished and innovative poets who offer an acoustically rich and reflective look into a single poem.
Caitlin Doyle thinks about romance novels at the end of a relationship. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
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Stacy Szymaszek writes a poem in gratitude to her students. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Will Alexander finds ways of writing poems to revitalize language as a whole. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Christine Kanownik examines the place of religion and spirituality in secular life. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Evie Shockley expresses frustration over ongoing immigration policies and thinks about ways Americans might better live together. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Matei Yankelevich meditates on the nature of poetic language and lingers over events from his past. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
George Abraham invents a new sonnet form to investigate an act of vandalism that occurred in a Palestinian vineyard. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Jill Magi explores the intersections between sports culture and corporate job-speak. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Divya Victor considers the effects of transnational migration on family life. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Jennifer Foerster imagines encountering her younger self on a walk through the streets of Vienna. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Wendy Lotterman wonders what home invasion and poetry have in common. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Emmalea Russo recalls a Skype healing session and remembers the death of her aunt Vera. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Lotte L.S. considers the legacy of British poet and political activist Anna Mendelssohn. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Emily Sieu Liebowitz begins a poem by wondering if the Trojan Horse was merely a metaphor for written language. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Dora Malech reflects on the way gun violence and school shootings have affected her own life. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Sawako Nakayasu imagines eating a bowl of girl soup and the conundrum posed by her own intervention. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Emily Skillings writes a tribute to poet John Ashbery who died in September of 2017. Produced by Sarah Geis.
Rodney Koeneke considers the mystery and language of riddles. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Khaled Mattawa remembers the sense of hope felt during the Arab Spring and at the prospect of having a second child. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Kirsten Ihns considers the way a poem can dance the reader’s mind. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Eric Baus demonstrates how the powerful can learn from something seemingly small and weak. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Hai-Dang Phan examines archival documents concerning the abduction of a young Vietnamese woman by Thai pirates in the 1980s. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Cedar Sigo pays tribute to the poet Joanne Kyger, who died in March of 2017. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Maureen Thorson recalls details of her life in 1989 when she was 10 years old. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Jared Stanley imagines how climate change will displace populations and what that could mean for one’s family. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Kimberly Lyons interrogates the purchase of second-hand clothes and the writing of poetry. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
André Naffis-Sahely visits the desert of Arizona and contemplates the cruelty of the Trump Administration’s policy of family separation at the southern border. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Katy Bohinc leaves Paris and writes a poem of apology after a misunderstanding with someone close to her. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Patricia Spears Jones considers the dynamics of race through the lens of a 1930s Mae West film. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Geoffrey Hilsabeck imagines a conversation between Walt Whitman and Ralph Waldo Emerson as they walk through Boston Common.
Ginger Ko imagines the near future when humans will possess a fully automated representative. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Chris Glomski considers the variables that comprise a human life. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Justin Phillip Reed imagines an inverted history of slavery. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Jessica Laser considers wisdom, poetry, and procrastination. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Simone White documents a mother’s life with her infant son. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Chris Martin composes a list of things one might do in hell. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Brian Lucas takes a speculative look at figures of deception. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Jay Besemer considers heredity and the uncertainty of one’s past. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Elisa Gabbert meditates on the nature of suffering and the language we use to describe it. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Rusty Morrison recalls an encounter in an airport and considers how touch can be a source of knowledge. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Julian Talamantez Brolaski considers the way we use pronouns to signal gender. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Richard Blanco remembers the 17 students killed in a mass-shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on February 14th, 2018. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Stephanie Ellis Schlaifer imagines the prospect of a God who may have created humanity in order to battle evil. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Katy Lederer recalls her experience with in vitro fertilization and finds poetry in the language of science. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Donika Kelly recalls a class field trip to a sea lion sanctuary in the sixth grade and questions why certain lives are valued above others. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Diana Khoi Nguyen meditates on the importance of exchanging marital vows. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Hayan Charara considers how the world would be different today if certain historically significant events had not taken place in the late 1990s. Produced by Sarah Geis.
francine j. harris revisits her childhood home in Detroit and imagines the ways destruction can be an empowering act. Produced by Colin McNulty.
Gabriel Ojeda-Sague describes a strange dream and considers the domestic space he has built with his partner.
Tongo Eisen-Martin examines the institutions artists and artworks occupy and uses writing as a challenge to power. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Ruben Quesada remembers a friend who died under mysterious circumstances and meditates on his own friends, loved ones, and mortality. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Mark Tardi begins a poem with a line from the journal of the artist Francesca Woodman, a photographer known for her haunting self-portraits. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Brenda Hillman explores the many nuances of human emotions and articulates the moment before a feeling comes into being. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Toby Altman visits a hospital in Washington State designed by Bertrand Goldberg and considers the costs of making art in contemporary America. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Lisa Wells recalls a time in the woods with her father and meditates on the climate crisis threatening life on Earth. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Edmund Berrigan finds an old photo of his mother and father and describes a rich web of detail from the image. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Randall Mann remembers a poem by Richard Wilbur and addresses social and spiritual concerns of San Francisco, the city where he has lived for 20 years. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Ali Power considers the relationship between a psychotherapist and her patient. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
During a poetry workshop, Bridget Talone composes a poem inspired by the writing of poet David Larsen. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Celina Su looks at the environmental consequences involved with offshore drilling and fracking. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Hanif Abdurriqib investigates a scene from Christopher Nolan’s film The Prestige and considers the costs of one’s life. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Meena Alexander meditates on her transnational upbringing and interrogates the question of one’s origins. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Claudia La Rocco writes a poem as a gift to a friend experiencing a difficult set of life circumstances. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Sophia Dahlin navigates a complicated set of emotions inside an emotionally abusive relationship. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Lillian Yvonne Bertram meditates on conflicted romantic feelings during a summer spent in Maine. Produced by Ayana Contreras.
Emily Hunt documents her time working at a greenhouse for an online flower seller. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Laura Marie Marciano describes the feeling of freedom after closing a chapter in one’s life. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Kazim Ali focuses on the way attention to sound can open a spiritual dimension in poetry. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Ryo Yamaguchi considers how future generations may characterize our present moment in time. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Daniel Poppick thinks about fear and recalls a woman from Queens who was disfigured in an acid attack in 2015. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Alan Felsenthal lists and blesses aspects of his life, large and small, for which he is grateful. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Gillian Conoley discusses the devastation wrought by the October 2017 Northern California wildfires, the most destructive in the state’s history. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
After an artist residency at Chicago’s International Museum of Surgical Science, Carrie Olivia Adams celebrates the lives of pioneering women in medicine during the nineteenth century. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Kenyatta Rogers distracts himself with writing during an uncomfortable flight from Los Angeles to Chicago. Produced by Sarah Geis.
Elaine Kahn meditates on care, loss, and the uncertainty of the future. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Noel Black imagines singing karaoke on a yacht to the music of Michael McDonald. Produced by Sarah Geis.
Mary Cisper mediates on loss and grief after the death of her former husband. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
John Lennox summons the presence of a friend who died suddenly and at a young age. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Anjuli Raza Kolb describes how her grandfather rewrote verses of the Qur’an using only the @ sign on his typewriter. Produced by Sarah Geis.
Nick Twemlow navigates the often bizarre and alienating world of the modern office. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Feliz Lucia Molina remembers her life as a child while growing up in the San Fernando Valley. Produced by Sarah Geis.
Roberto Harrison imagines a time when death itself will be artificial. Produced by Sarah Geis.
Prageeta Sharma reflects on the last night of intimacy with her terminally ill partner. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Randall Horton thinks about the ways we trap ourselves and others in boxes. Produced by Sarah Geis.
Diana Arterian describes the wedding ceremony of Agrippina the Younger, Empress of Rome and mother to the infamous Emperor Nero. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Johannes Göransson catalogs his summer travels through Berlin and Stockholm. Produced by Sarah Geis.
Vi Khi Nao’s poem inhabits the scene of a painting composed in 1998 by Norwegian artist Odd Nerdrum. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Kit Robinson describes a walk home on a summer night as a cinematic experience. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
Harmony Holiday meditates on her biracial heritage and the legacy of her parents. Produced by Katie Klocksin
Jennifer Firestone recounts the state of dementia in a loved one. Produced by Sarah Geis.
David Shook responds to a poem by Pablo Neruda with his own poem set in present-day Middle East. Produced by Sarah Geis.