Words by Winter: Recent Episodes
Alison McGhee
Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it's rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Oh, the fathers. The fathers and those who stand in for fathers. My own father is gone now, and how I miss him.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, Dressing My Father-in-Law for Burial, is by Benjamin Cutler and is included in his new collection Wild Silence, forthcoming in October 2024. It's featured here with kind permission of the poet. I encourage you to check out more of his beautiful work.
Sterling A. Brown's work stays with me, making me think about childhood, and the things we leave behind, but why?
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, Return, by writer, poet and teacher Sterling A. Brown, is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
All summer, he's hidden
his voice, no matter how I begged for
just one song.Three lines from "Music Box" which, to me, encapsulate the love and anger and longing that siblings can feel for each other, all in the same moment. Families are complicated.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, Music Box, by Rhett Iseman Trull, is featured here with kind permission of the poet. I encourage you to check out more of her beautiful work.
Sometimes a simple poem, filled with a kind of resigned longing, belies the long meanderings of an extraordinary and complicated life.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, So We'll Go NoMore A-Roving, by Louis Untermeyer, is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
What are some of the most important things you've left off your resume, the kind of things that in your heart of heart are most important to you? Poet Joyce Sutphen lists some of hers, in this gorgeous poem.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, Things You Didn't Put on Your Resumé, by Joyce Sutphen, is featured here with kind permission of the poet. I encourage you to check out more of her beautiful work.
I tend to shy away from rhyme, thinking it'll be all jingly, but guess what? I'm so often wrong.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, Faith, by Louis Untermeyer, is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
To be loved by someone the way our couches love us? That's a beautiful thing, at least to someone like me, who personifies the furniture in her home.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, Ode to a Couch, by Chris Abbate, is featured here with kind permission of the poet. I encourage you to check out more of his work at http://www.chrisabbate.com/about-me.html.
"Must I alone, my once, my own?" laments the poet. We've all been there, haven't we?
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, Gone With the Swallows, is by Arab-American writer and poet Ameen Rihani and is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
What if we cared for everyone in pain, everyone suffering, the way we would care for our own child?
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, Words Whispered to a Child Under Siege, by Joseph Fasano, is featured here with kind permission of the poet. I encourage you to check out more of his work at josephfasano.net or on Instagram.
This poem, Challenge, by Sterling A. Brown, has haunted me --not in a bad way, in a wondering sort of way--since I first came across it.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, Challenge, by writer, poet and teacher Sterling A. Brown, is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
Our physical bodies hold clues to what we're most drawn to do in life, or what we spend so much of our time doing, or where and how and with whom we've lived.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, Samson et Dalila, Op. 47, by Jessica Tanck, is featured here with kind permission of the poet. I encourage you to check out her forthcoming collection, Winter Here , due out early in 2024 from the University of Georgia Press.
There's something magical about this little poem, its lilt and wonder, its questions and imaginings.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, eWhere Go the Boats, is by British writer and poet Robert Louis Stevenson and is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
Sometimes you look at something you've seen a thousand times and suddenly you know something about it, or about yourself, that you never knew before.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, Keel, by Keith Leonard, is featured here with kind permission of the poet. I encourage you to look up his collection, Ramshackle Ode, published by Ecco Press.
Sometimes you just want a poem that swings and sways and washes in and out and carries you along with it, the way the sea does.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, Sea Fever, by British poet John Masefield, is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
It's an odd experience, giving a chatbot an assignment to write about one of your own novels, and then see what it comes back with.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, For a Student Who Used AI to Write a Paper, by Joseph Fasano, is featured here with kind permission of the poet.
I'm looking right now at the tall pine in my front yard. I wish you could see it too.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, Trees at Night, by Helene Johnson, is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
You know those moments, or experiences, or places, or people in life that, when you encounter them, give your life a whole new perspective?
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, Directions to Your College Dorm, by Faith Shearin, is featured here with kind permission of the poet and Orpheus, Turning and Broadkill River Press.
If you had it to do over again, would you?
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, Living in the Moment, by J. Estanislao Lopez, is from his recent collection We Borrowed Gentleness, and is featured here with kind permission of the poet.
All my life I've loved this poet, and now that I know more about her life, I love her more.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay are in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
Where do we go when Alzheimer's takes us down its curving roads? Do the rituals we loved all our lives stay with us?
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, Baby Monitor, by George Kalogeris, is featured here with kind permission of the poet.
I've never written a poem recipe before, but after reading this one, I intend to give it a try!
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, Recipe for a Salad, by Sydney Smith, is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
When your mother asks you for a happy poem, you write one for her.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, My Mom’s Been Asking for a Happy Poem All My Life, by Jennifer Givhan, is featured here with kind permission of the poet.
Click here for more information about the wondrous poet and novelist Jennifer Givhan.
It's a Poetry Snack, featuring Lola Ridge, born in Dublin, raised in Australia and New Zealand, who lived and wrote and worked her activist magic on the Lower East Side of New York City.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, Thaw, by Lola Ridge, is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
So much of what we love about the things in our lives isn't the thing-ness of them. It's the people, and places, and moments that they evoke.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, The Sound of Music, by Kathryn Nuernberger, is featured here with kind permission of the poet and publisher.
Click here for more information about poet and nonfiction writer Kathryn Nuernberger. You'll be glad you did.
It's a Poetry Snack, featuring Angelina Weld Grimke, daughter of a white Boston aristocrat and her born-enslaved husband.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, A Winter Twilight,is by Angelina Weld Grimke and is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
Once you see through the swinging door into other worlds that exist alongside this one, you see those doors everywhere.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, Picking Blueberries, by Rosanna Young Oh, is from her recent collection The Corrected Version, winner of the Diode Editions Book Contest, and is featured here with kind permission of the poet and publisher.
Click here for more information about Rosanna Young Oh, and click here for more information about Diode Editions.
It's a Poetry Snack, featuring Yone Noguchi, the first Japanese-born poet to publish poetry in English.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, The faint shadow of the morning moon, is by Yone Noguchi and is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
How do you honor the ones who came before you? In thought and word and deeds?
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, Because, by Tim Nolan, is from his recent collection Lines and is featured here with kind permission of the poet.
It's a Poetry Snack, featuring Elinor Wylie, who lived rebelliously in a time when it was (even harder) for women to live rebelliously.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, Velvet Shoes, is by Elinor Wylie and is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
Do you ever find yourself transported back in time, your body acting on autopilot, as if you're living all the ages you ever were?
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, Driving Without Radio, by Robert Okaji, is featured here with kind permission of the poet. You can find more information about Robert Okaji, along with more of his beautiful poems, at https://robertokaji.com/about/.
It's a Poetry Snack, featuring Esther Popel Shaw, who was part of the Harlem Renaissance and who self-published her first book of poetry, Thoughtless Thinks from a Thinkless Thaughter, when she was in high school.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, Theft,, is by Esther Popel Shaw and is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
Oh, the people and places and animals and things woven so deeply into the existence of our lives...the warp and weft that give depth and nuance and richness to our lives,
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, May 5, 2020, by physician and poet John Okrent, is featured here with kind permission of the poet. You can find more information about John Okrent, along with more of his beautiful poems, at https://johnokrent.com/.
It's a Poetry Snack, featuring Jonathan Swift, who lived and wrote his many works in the early 1700's.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, This Day,, is by Jonathan Swift and is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
Did someone once say something to you, as a child, that has sustained you throughout your entire life since?
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, A Young Man, a Stranger, Smiled at Me, by Jim Moore, is featured here with kind permission of the poet. You can find more information about Jim Moore at https://jimmoorepoet.com/.
It's a Poetry Snack, featuring Robert Frost.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, The Aim Was Song, is by Robert Frost and is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
Anyone keep their old address books? If so, are you like me, unable ever to cross out a name?
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, Lake of the Isles, by Anni Liu, is featured here with kind permission of the poet. You can find more information about her at https://anniliuwrites.wordpress.com/.
It's a Poetry Snack, featuring Elsa Gidlow.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, Of a Certain Friendship, by Elsa Gidlow, is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
A listener in Florida writes in about monkeypox, and how it reminds him of "the first plague" he, unlike many of his friends, survived.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, 72 Corona Transmutations (excerpt), by CAConrad, is featured here with kind permission of the poet. Look up CAConrad on Youtube and elsewhere; they are incredible.
It's a Poetry Snack, featuring Evelyn Scott.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, From Brooklyn, by Evelyn Scott, is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
Are we all the people we ever were, at all times, everywhere? Are we all the people we never were, somehow, all the people we dreamed we might be?
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, The Evening Star, by George Kalogeris, is featured here with kind permission of the poet. It was originally printed in the Harvard Review. Kalogeris's latest collection, published last year, is the gorgeous Winthropos,
It's a Poetry Snack, featuring Yvor Winters.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, The Moonlight, by Yvor Winters, is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
Do you ever conjure up the voices of those you love and loved? Do you wonder where they are, now that they are no longer here on earth? Does their laughter echo in your heart?
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, How could I have known I would need to remember your laughter, by Lauren K. Alleyne, is featured here with kind permission of the poet. You can find more information about her, including more of her gorgeous poems, on her website: https://laurenkalleyne.com/Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
It's a Poetry Snack, featuring Charles Reznikoff.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, [The city breaks in houses to the sea, uneasy with waves,], by Charles Reznikoff, is in the public domain. Riders, by Robert Frost, is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
Have you ever tried, with all your might, to the point of exhaustion, to make someone else happy?
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, Currency: A Mapping / Jishin-no-ben, by Lee Ann Roripaugh, is featured here with kind permission of the poet and was originally published in Boulevard. It was later reprinted in Verse Daily. In addition to being a poet and the former South Dakota Poet Laureate, Lee Ann Roripaugh is a professor of English at the University of South Dakota and the Editor-in-Chief of the South Dakota Review.Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
It's a Poetry Snack, featuring Robert Frost, an American poet known for his poems set in the New England countryside, often focused on an aspect of the natural world, especially winter, that opens a window into the human soul.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, Riders, by Robert Frost, is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
If we could come back to life somehow, in some form, how might we appear to the ones we love?
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem Fancies, by Mrs. Minot Carter, is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
It's a Poetry Snack, featuring Laura Riding Jackson.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, The Spring Has Many Silences by Laura Riding Jackson, is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
It's a Poetry Snack, featuring Claude McKay, born Festus Claudius McKay in Sunny Ville, Jamaica in 1889. McKay wrote both poetry and prose, and he was another key figure in the Harlem Renaissance, the prominent literary movement of the 1920s and 30s that I often mention here on the podcast.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, After the Winter, is in the public domain.
Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
Ever look around you, questioning so many decisions you made or didn't make along the way, and feel as if everyone else has it somehow figured out better than you?
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, Allegiance, by Hannah Marshall, is featured here with kind permission of the poet. Check out more of her gorgeous work here: https://hannahmarshallpoet.com/.
Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
It's a Poetry Snack, featuring Clarissa Scott Delaney.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, Joy, is in the public domain and was written by Clarissa Scott Delany, born Clarissa Mae Scott, who was an African American author of essays and poems, teacher, and social worker active during the time of the Harlem Renaissance, a hugely influential outpouring of art of all kinds from Black artists in Harlem nearly a century ago.
Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
Do you ever imagine people long gone from your life, how they might look now, if they would remember you, sense you somehow even if you're not there?
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, Forsythias, by C.L. O’Dell, is featured here with kind permission of the poet.Check out more of his beautiful poems here: https://www.clodellpoet.com/poems.html.
Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
Anyone who thinks it's an insult to describe someone as a "former comedian" has clearly never stood alone in front of a crowd of people with the intention of making them laugh.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, which I'm calling What Is, is by the Persian poet Jalal Al-din Muhammad Rumi, and is in the public domain.
Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
It's a Poetry Snack, featuring Arna Bontemps.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, Length of Moon, is in the public domain and was written by Arna Bontemps, who was part of the incredible and influential Harlem Renaissance movement of Black artists nearly a century ago. Bontemps was a poet, novelist, historian, anthologist and archivist of Black cultural heritage.
Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
When you think of those you most love, how do they come to you? In voice or looks or scent? In touch?
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, The Saint’s First Wife Said, is by poet, critic and public artist GE Patterson, and can be found in his first collection, Tug. It's featured here with kind permission of the poet.
Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
It's a Poetry Snack, featuring Sara Teasdale.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, February Twilight, is by Sara Teasdale and is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
Sometimes a poem takes your breath away with the gorgeous sweep of its memory, and by its refusal to look away.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, love & the memory of it, by Jay Hopler, is featured here with kind permission of the poet. Jay Hopler’s new book, Still Life, will be out from McSweeney’s in April. I’ve preordered it and you should too. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
It's another poetry snack with Robert Frost, a New Englander whose poems often center on that solitary, sensory landscape.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, by Robert Frost, is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
A listener named Esty writes in about a tough work situation. Work, even work we love, takes up so much of our energy and time, and when things go south, it's painful. I went in search of a poem to help Esty through.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem is The World We Make, by Alfred Grant Walton. I searched and searched for how to obtain copyright permission but I couldn’t find any information – if someone knows, please let me know.. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
Today's poetry snack is adapted from a poem by Carl Sandburg.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. The original version of today's poem (below) is titled A Father to His Son, by Carl Sandburg, and is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
(Original, unadapted version of the poem)
A Father to His Son, by Carl Sandburg
A father sees his son nearing manhood.
What shall he tell that son?
"Life is hard; be steel; be a rock."
And this might stand him for the storms
and serve him for humdrum monotony
and guide him among sudden betrayals
and tighten him for slack moments.
"Life is a soft loam; be gentle; go easy."
And this too might serve him.
Brutes have been gentled where lashes failed.
The growth of a frail flower in a path up
has sometimes shattered and split a rock.
A tough will counts. So does desire.
So does a rich soft wanting.
Without rich wanting nothing arrives.
Tell him too much money has killed men
and left them dead years before burial:
the quest of lucre beyond a few easy needs
has twisted good enough men
sometimes into dry thwarted worms.
Tell him time as a stuff can be wasted.
Tell him to be a fool every so often
and to have no shame over having been a fool
yet learning something out of every folly
hoping to repeat none of the cheap follies
thus arriving at intimate understanding
of a world numbering many fools.
Tell him to be alone often and get at himself
and above all tell himself no lies about himself
whatever the white lies and protective fronts
he may use against other people.
Tell him solitude is creative if he is strong
and the final decisions are made in silent rooms.
Tell him to be different from other people
if it comes natural and easy being different.
Let him have lazy days seeking his deeper motives.
Let him seek deep for where he is born natural.
Then he may understand Shakespeare
and the Wright brothers, Pasteur, Pavlov,
Michael Faraday and free imaginations
Bringing changes into a world resenting change.
He will be lonely enough
to have time for the work
he knows as his own.
Today's featured poem, Wondrous, encompasses so much about life as a child and life as a grownup. That long tunnel of years between childhood and the point at which you look back on it and think Now I know why my mother was crying, because you yourself now cry at the same thing.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, Wondrous, bySarah Freligh, is from her book Sad Math, published by Moon City Press, and was read with the poet’s kind permission. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
It's a poetry snack, with Robert Frost, a New Englander whose poems often center on that solitary, sensory landscape.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, My November Guest, by Robert Frost, is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
Who were your childhood friends? Do you remember them? Much happens in childhood, much good, much bad, much of it experienced with the friends we had back then. Sometimes my childhood friends and I look back through the lens of time and talk about long-gone days.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, “Indian Creek,” is by Robin Rosen Chang, from her book The Curator’s Notes, published by Terrapin Books, and is read with the poet’s kind permission. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
It's a post-Halloween poetry snack, with Edgar Allan Poe.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, "Annabel Lee, by Edgar Allan Poe, is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
It's a poetry snack, with Edward Estlin Cummings, who went by his initials, always lowercased, ee.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, "All in green went my love riding," by ee cummings, is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
What exactly is competition? What does it mean to be a team player? How do you know if you're competitive, and can you be competitive with yourself?
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, "Turning," is by Joe Mills. It comes from his book "This Miraculous Turning" (Press 53) and was read with the poet's kind permission. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
It's a Poetry Snack, featuring poet Amy Lowell.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, The Letter, is by Amy Lowell and is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
A listener in Georgia named Perron writes in about her relationship with her daughter. It's a complicated relationship, like so many between parents and children, full of fear and love and a specific heartache both contemporary in form and ancient in experience. Perron asked for a poem, and we turned to Ellen Bass.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, "After Our Daughter's Wedding," by Ellen Bass, is from her collection titled Mules of Love. It was published by BOA Editions in 2002 is read with the poet's kind permission. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
It's an end of the month Poetry Snack, with Carl Sandburg.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, River Roads, is by Carl Sandburg and is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
Are there people in the world you owe? People you think about, and wish you'd thanked, or more than thanked, at the time, but out of shock, or because you weren’t thinking straight, didn’t?
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, At a Waterfall, Reykjavik, by Eileen Myles, is read with the poet's kind permission. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
It's a twice-monthly Poetry Snack, this time with Robert Frost.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, Acquainted with the Night, by Robert Frost, is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
Where and when in the wide world do you feel most alive? Most at one with your physical body, full of its beautiful power?
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, Bird, by the wondrous Danusha Lameris, is read with her kind permission. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
It's an end of the month Poetry Snack, with Christina Rossetti.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, Who Has Seen the Wind? is by Christina Rossetti and is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
It's a twice-monthly Poetry Snack, with Emily Dickinson, whom your recalcitrant host is learning to appreciate.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem is by Emily Dickinson and is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
When a small decision --to raise your hand, to walk through an unfamiliar door--reverberates throughout your life, changes the way you live, and think, and look at the world.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poetic essay, Thirty-Five Years Ago, I Raise My Hand, is by poet Robert Okaji and is read by the poet himself. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
It's a twice-monthly Poetry Snack, this time with A.E. Housman.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, To an Athlete Dying Young, by Alfred Edward Housman, is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
Listeners write in with stories of unexpected twists and turns and how their lives changed as a result.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, Lucky, by Kirsten Dierking, is used with the poet's kind permission.. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
It's a twice-monthly Poetry Snack, this time with Amy Lowell, who loved and wrote Imagist poetry, full of precise visual imagery.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, A London Thoroughfare, 2 a.m,, is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
My friend and I held hands in his living room and talked and laughed and cried. We both knew it would be our last conversation.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, For All the People I Have Been, by John Zdrazil, is used without his permission, because he's not here to grant it (this would have made him laugh). Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
It's a twice-monthly Poetry Snack, this time with Angelina Weld Grimke, whose poems, written a century ago, feel fresh and alive,
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem is by Angelina Weld Grimke and is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
A listener named Julie writes in, wondering how she can keep her mother in her life and also keep her own sanity.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, My Mother Is a Peaceful Ghost, by Lisa Dordal, is used with kind permission of the poet, who can be found at lisadordal.com. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
It's an end of the month Poetry Snack, with Carl Sandburg. Note that we will be off the month of June - please check out the archives for episodes you may have missed or want to hear again.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, The Fog, is by Carl Sandburg and is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
Sometimes, in an awful time, cruelty can feel more common than kindness. How do you shore yourself up?
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, What to Do, by Joyce Sutphen, was read by Mark Garry and used with kind permission of the poet. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
My young trans friend sent me a photo the other day in which he wore a necklace and a lacy flowered shirt and a big happy grin. This is my favorite photo of you ever! I wrote back.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, Summer, by Chen Chen, was read with the poet’s kind permission. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com
Ever wanted to be someone else? Something else? Escape something that you can't --not yet, anyway-- escape?
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, Mouse, by Karen Bjork Kubin, was read by the poet herself, and is used with her kind permission.
It's an end of the month Poetry Snack, with Sara Teasdale.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, Barter, is by Sara Teasdale and is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
Did you know that until maybe 200 or 250 years ago, the word “they” was perfectly acceptable as a singular pronoun? Times change, language is malleable, and poems reflect both these truths.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Today’s poems, Syntax and its next generation version, immigrant can’t write poetry, are by Wang Ping and are used with her kind permission.
What are the little phrases and lines and words that keep you going?
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, Owls, by Robert Hedin, is used with his kind permission and was read by Mark Garry. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
A listener writes in about a dream she keeps having. She's in a house she doesn't recognize, looking for a door she can't find.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, “The Accordion” by Connie Wanek, is read with kind permission of the poet and is from her book On Speaking Terms, published by Copper Canyon Press.
It's an end of the month Poetry Snack, with Fenton Johnson.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, Revery, by Fenton Johnson, is in the public domain and was read by Mark Garry. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
Hope for the future feels familiar, but what about hope for the past as well? A listener in Texas wrote in hoping for a poem that might bring him some comfort.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, Thanks, Robert Frost, written and copyrighted by David Ray, was read by Mark Garry with kind permission of the poet. You can find more of David Ray’s work on his website, davidraypoet.com.
Did you used to sing a lot when you were a kid? Does music from your past bring you straight to a specific place, a specific time, specific people?
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s beautiful poem, A Lao Jia Song Is a Song of Home, by Stephanie Niu, was first published in the Southeast Review, and was read by the poet herself. The link to the youtube video with the ballerina can be found here.
Answers to the question "Tell me about an object in your home that you love, will you? One that has special meaning, maybe only to you."
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's additional readers are Devon O'Brien and Matthew Colfax. Naomi Shihab Nye’s beautiful poem Daily is read with her kind permission. I encourage you all to look up her work, as she is one of my and our country’s most beloved poets.
It's an end of the month Poetry Snack, with Elizabeth Coatsworth.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, Swift Things Are Beautiful, is by Elizabeth Coatsworth. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
How do we learn to cope with "the big feelings" and understand that we are more than them? More than our times of depression, more than our thoughts of suicide. We are also our times of lightness and laughter, love and redemption.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
If you or someone you love are depressed or suicidal, call 1.800.273.TALK, or if you prefer texting, text NAMI to 741-741. Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Artwork by Mark Garry. Thanks to Devon O'Brien for sharing her experiences as a social worker. Jessy Randall’s beautiful poem Suicide Hotline Hold Music is read with the kind permission of Red Hen Press.
How do we call ourselves back to the world, call others back to the world? A listener named Olivier, his voice filled with bewildered, anguished love, called in about his two children, who on two successive days last year attempted suicide.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
If you or someone you love are depressed or suicidal, call 1.800.273.TALK, or if you prefer texting, text NAMI to 741-741. Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music by Kelly Krebs. Elana Bell’s beautiful poem Miracle was read by Matthew Colfax with Elana’s kind permission. It can be found in her new book "Mother Country," just out from BOA Editions this fall. For more information about Elana Bell and her work, please check out her website: elanabell.com.
In the depths of depression, how easy it is to forget all the ways that this life is still calling out to us. Join us for a conversation with Rocky Callen, author of the lovely novel A Breath Too Late.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
If you or someone you love are depressed or suicidal, call 1.800.273.TALK, or if you prefer texting, text NAMI to 741-741. Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese, with additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com. For more info, go to alisonmcghee.com.
Of the thousands of books on the shelves throughout my house, a solid half are unread. How many will I ever get through? Why is it so, so hard to let them go?
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese, with additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's quote is from Ulysses, by James Joyce. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
A listener in Germany writes in wondering if there's a poem for those of us who aren't fearless.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese, with additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, These Poems, by June Jordan, is read with kind permission of the publisher. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
It’s Dr. Martin Luther King Day, almost two weeks from the day that insurrectionists stormed the Capitol and partially destroyed it as they hunted down their fellow human beings. An event which makes me think of a lie I once told, many years ago.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese, with additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, A Man May Make a Remark, by Emily Dickinson, is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
In a letter that might feel familiar to many, a listener named Jeanne from upstate New York writes in wondering how to find her own words, and how to put them forth into the world.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese, with additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, At the End of My Marriage, I Think of Something My Daughter Said about Trees, by the wondrous Maggie Smith, is read with kind permission of the poet. Check out her beautiful work at maggiesmithpoet.com. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
Thinking today about code words, words between people who are close to each other, words passed down over years or a lifetime that have meaning only to the people who share them.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese, with additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, Besaydoo, by Yalie Kamara, was read with the kind permission of the poet, who also so generously read it for us. Please check out more of her beautiful work at her website, yaylala.com. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
When all is said and done, what do you hope others remember you for?
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese, with additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem fragment is by the late, great Raymond Carver. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
Words by Winter celebrates its first half year of life! Thanks to all the listeners and helpers.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese, with additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
Are we really each other’s enemies? Is hatred and scorn our common enemy? Is there a way to come together? What is the answer here? What even are the questions?
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese, with additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, from September 1, 1939, by W.H. Auden, is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
A listener from England named Hugh writes in about the poems he found in a notebook after his father's death, poems he never knew his father had written.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese, with additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, The Wild Swans at Coole, is by William Butler Yeats and is in the public domain. It was read by Luke O'Brien. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
A listener from Arizona named Russ writes in about his fear that in the unending awfulness of 2020 he's turning toward animals as a defense against humans. That he's always been a "defender of humans" and doesn't want to turn into one of those people who only loves dogs.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese, with additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven, is by William Butler Yeats and is in the public domain. It was read by Luke O'Brien. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
Technology and its gadgets bring the seen and unseen worlds closer, begin to dissolve the boundaries we live by, have believed in. But is it possible that the boundaries were never there to begin with?
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese, with additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, Young Relics , is by poet Emma Hine and read with her kind permission. Please check out her website: emmahine.com. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
In the beginning of the pandemic, we did an episode about a listener from the Czech Republic, who had gone two months without touch. . . and now here we are, eight months in.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese, with additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, Two Countries, is by the wondrous Naomi Shihab Nye and read with her permission. Naomi Shihab Nye's work can be found everywhere --she is one of our most beloved poets--and I encourage you, for your own sake, to seek it out. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
What's your definition of a "small luxury"? That morning cup of coffee? Chocolate? Time?
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese, with additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, Leisure, is by William Henry Davies (I can find no copyright information for it). Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
How does someone survive a childhood spent with a sociopathic parent? My friend Sarah, who was the inspiration behind the character of Sesame in my new novel, not only survived but emerged triumphant, and she agreed to be interviewed for the podcast. Featuring the beautiful poetry of Danusha Lameris.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, Bonfire Opera, by Danusha Lameris, is from her new book by the same name. It was read by Luke O’Brien with permission of the poet and the University of Pittsburgh Press. For more of Danusha Lameris’s gorgeous work, please check out her website, danushalameris.com. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
All around my kayak and me and the birds and wildlife, Minneapolis was bubbling and churning with city life. But you wouldn’t know it from where I sat in my orange and yellow and red kayak, in the middle of the lake.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, "Zazen on Ching Ting Mountain," is by Li Bai and was translated by Sam Hamill and found in his book Crossing the Yellow River: Three Hundred Poems from the Chinese. It was read with permission of the poet and Tiger Bark Press. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
It was a strange job at a strange and broken period of life. But I did have one thing going for me, which was all the books piled in the backseat of the car.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Today’s poem, Speed Reading, originally appeared in the Cumberland River Review and was read by Luke O'Brien with kind permission of the author, poet Julie L. Moore. Please check out her books and other poems on her website: julielmoore.com. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
When I first noticed Walking Man, I was in my twenties and he probably wasn’t much older. The difference between us was that he never stopped walking.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Art by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, Walking to Jerusalem, is by Philip Terman and was read by Luke O'Brien. The poem originally appeared in Our Portion: New and Selected Poems, published by Autumn House Press, and was read with kind permission of the poet. For more information about Philip Terman, please check out his website: philipterman.com. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
How do people let their lives be taken over? How does a charismatic person slowly, and inexorably, draw others into his orbit? Why are so many so afraid to stand up to people like that?
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's reading is from Where We Are, by Alison McGhee, which can be found everywhere you buy or borrow your books. Today’s quote, by Walt Whitman, is in the public domain and was read by writer and voice actor Luke O’Brien, who can be found at lukeobrien3216@gmail,com. Words by Winter can be found at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
The thing about trust is that it's not always instinctive. Sometimes it takes effort, and intention, to train your mind on goodness instead of fear.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem-ish lines from "World So Full," and the song itself, are used with kind permission of musician and artist Jon Dee Graham, who can be found at jondeegraham.com. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
Today's episode is about a listener named Janet, whose mother is at one end of life, whose new grandson is on the other, and where is she? Held in the the vast in-between of loss and love.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, “The Hammock,” by Li-Young Lee, is used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of BOA Editions, Ltd. The excerpt from The Latehomecomer, by Kao Kalia Yang, is used with permission of the author, who can be found at kaokaliayang.com.
Wide-open streets, the snow-capped Rockies, skinny-dipping in Flathead Lake. We were free, free, free. Now I know you can hold a moment of freedom in your heart your whole life long.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music composed and performed by Dylan Perese. Alison Luterman's poem "Canoe" was read by Luke O'Brien with kind permission of the poet, who can be found at alisonluterman.net. Artwork by Mark Garry. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
What wearies you? What renews you? Who brings you joy? Who exhausts you? When you think of safety and comfort and happiness, what place or person comes to mind? The answers to these questions are already known to you.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Today's poem, Mail, by John Freeman, is read with kind permission of the poet and can be found in his wonderful collection Maps, published by Copper Canyon Press. Original theme music composed and performed by Dylan Perese. Additional music by musician Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
We're always children, aren't we? We always look for, and depend on in the deepest part of our beings, our parents. We want them to take care of us, to see us, to soothe us, to recognize our accomplishments and our graces.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, "How About?" by Steve Healey, is from his wonderful book Safe Houses I Have Known, published by Coffee House Press. It was read by Nico and Ramona and also by Luke O'Brien. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
A listener in Germany writes in with this question: "Are you haunted by moments when something really bad could have happened, an accident, for example, but then things went well?"
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music composed and performed by Dylan Perese. Additional music by musician Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
Have you ever carried a secret inside of you, something crucial that no one in the entire world knows about? Has the psychic weight of it felt like a threat to your existence?
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today's poem, "Small Kindnesses," by Danusha Lameris, was read by Luke O'Brien with the permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
Not all revolutions are loud and violent. Take the poetry revolution, for example. The poetry revolution will not be televised. The poetry revolution is a kind of hand to hand non-combat, silent offerings from a future, kinder world.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poems were all found in my poetry hut, left by anonymous visitors. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
My daughter and I were reminiscing yesterday about a time, a few years ago, when we went through a phase where the answer to every question was “Sure.” I don’t say Sure all the time anymore, but the influence of doing so has stayed with me.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Kaylin Haught’s fabulous poem can be found on the Poetry 180 site, sponsored by the U.S. government. Original theme music composed and performed by Dylan Perese. Additional music by musician Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
Remember when no one wore seatbelts? Remember when every bar and public place and airplane was filled with cigarette smoke? Remember when your gay friends couldn’t get married? Change comes tiny step by tiny step and then, all at once.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music for our show is by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by musician Kelly Krebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Today’s poem, Tired of Speaking Sweetly, by Hafiz, was read by Luke O’Brien and is in the public domain. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
You know the way it feels when you’re fired, or when you find out a bunch of friends were all at a celebration you weren’t invited to, or when someone you love breaks up with you? Like, wait, I mattered that little to you? I'm nothing to you? Even, or especially, when you tried so hard.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music composed and performed by Dylan Perese. Additional music by musician Kelly Krebs. Galway Kinnell’s poem "St. Francis and the Sow" was read by writer and voice actor Luke O’Brien and used with permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Artwork by Mark Garry. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com.
The older I get, the softer I want to be. The judgment I carried around when I was young was mostly internal, but it was harsh. And what good did it do anyone? What good did it do me?
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music composed and performed by Dylan Perese, who can be found on Instagram at @dylan.field.perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs, who can be reached at soundcloud.com/kellykrebs. Rumi's poem is in the public domain. Artwork by Mark Garry. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com. For more information, go to alisonmcghee.com and click on the Words by Winter podcast page.
Why is it that so many memories of freedom, of wildness, are from long ago? Does the world tell us to rein ourselves in, and do we listen, and learn, and obey? Thinking about this, I posed this question to listeners: “Tell me something you love, something you see as beautiful, or magical, or miraculous, about your own physical body, will you?”
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Original theme music composed and performed by Dylan Perese. Additional music by musician Kelly Krebs. Sonya Renee Taylor’s gorgeous poem was read by writer and voice actor Luke O’Brien with permission of the author. Information about Sonya Renee Taylor can be found at www.sonyareneetaylor.comand www.thebodyisnotanapology.com. Listener excerpts were read by Doug McGhee and Julie Caniglia. Artwork by Mark Garry.
One of my most precious friendships began with a single letter and turned into eighteen years of letters. Five years after Garvin's death, I still think about him every day.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
"My Father, Long Dead," by poet Eileen Sheehan, is used with permission of the author. It can be found in her beautiful collection "The Narrow Way of Souls," published by Salmon Poetry. Read by writer and voice artist Luke O'Brien, who can be reached at lukeobrien3216@gmail.com. Original music composed and performed by Dylan Perese, who can be found on Instagram at @dylan.field.perese. Artwork by Mark Garry. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com. For more information, go to alisonmcghee.com.
The high school graduations of my children were a strange mix for me of pride and love and loss. Listeners wrote in about their feelings surrounding their own children's graduations, and their heartfelt responses make me feel less alone in the bittersweetness of the memories.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Poet Dante Di Stefano’s "Prompts (for High School Teachers Who Write Poetry)” originally appeared in The Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-Day series, and is used with his permission. Original theme music composed and performed by Dylan Perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs, who can be reached at soundcloud.com/kellykrebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com. For more information, go to alisonmcghee.com and click on the Words by Winter podcast page.
What does it mean to write for children in a collapsing world? Writer Marion Dane Bauer explores this question, and the roots of her own wonderment and awe, in a conversation with Alison.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
Poet Sean Thomas Dougherty’s poem Why Bother, used with his permission, is from his book The Second O of Sorrow, published by BOA Editions. Original theme music composed and performed by Dylan Perese, who can be found on Instagram at @dylan.field.perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs, who can be reached at kellykrebsmusic@gmail.com and soundcloud.com/kellykrebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com. For more information, go to alisonmcghee.com and click on the Words by Winter podcast page.
A listener named Ellen, originally from the U.S. but living in the Czech Republic, writes in to share what's on her mind and heart, thoughts and feelings so specific to this time but also so universal,
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
"If You Knew," by Ellen Bass, is from her beautiful book The Human Line, published by Copper Canyon Press in 2007 and used with permission of the author and press. It was read by Matthew Colfax and Devon O'Brien. Ellen's letter was read by Devon O'Brien. Original theme music composed and performed by Dylan Perese, who can be found on Instagram at @dylan.field.perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs, who can be reached at kellykrebsmusic@gmail.com and soundcloud.com/kellykrebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com. For more information, go to alisonmcghee.com and click on the Words by Winter podcast page.
A couple of weeks ago I asked readers to tell me what they were struggling with, and responses came rolling in. Then I asked them to tell me what they're thankful for, and the floodgates opened. Sorrow and thanks, in equal measure, both of which make me think of one of my favorite poems, by David Hernandez.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
"Anyone Who Is Still Trying," by David Hernandez, is from his beautiful book Dear, Sincerely, published by the University of Pittsburg Press in 2016 and used with permission of the author. It was read by writer and voice artist Luke O'Brien, who can be reached at lukeobrien3216@gmail.com. Reader contributions were read by Matthew Colfax and Devon O'Brien. Original theme music composed and performed by Dylan Perese, who can be found on Instagram at @dylan.field.perese. Additional music composed and performed by Kelly Krebs, who can be reached at kellykrebsmusic@gmail.com and soundcloud.com/kellykrebs. Artwork by Mark Garry. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com. For more information, go to alisonmcghee.com and click on the Words by Winter podcast page.
Do you ever wish you could go back in time? Undo things? Make someone's life better? Today I’m back in third grade, thinking about a boy I grew up with, a boy who sat a few desks away from me, a boy I was scared of my entire childhood.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
"With that Moon Language," by Hafiz, translated by Daniel Ladinsky, is in the public domain. It was read by writer and voice artist Luke O'Brien, who can be reached at lukeobrien3216@gmail.com. Original music composed and performed by Dylan Perese, who can be found on Instagram at @dylan.field.perese. Artwork by Mark Garry. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com. For more information, go to alisonmcghee.com.
Long ago, on a night full of stars, I was alone and terrified. My cell phone was in the back pocket of my jeans and I reached for it and punched in a number I had memorized, then sat with my heart pounding as someone picked up.
Words by Winter: Conversations, reflections, and poems about the passages of life. Because it’s rough out there, and we have to help each other through.
"Suicide Hotline Hold Music," by Jessy Randall, is used with permission of Red Hen Press, and read by writer and voice artist Luke O'Brien, who can be reached at lukeobrien3216@gmail.com. Original music composed and performed by Dylan Perese, who can be found on Instagram at @dylan.field.perese. Words by Winter can be reached at wordsbywinterpodcast@gmail.com. For more information, go to alisonmcghee.com.