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Episode 89: Three Blackberries

Part 3 of the summer poems series is JUICY! 

"Blackberry-Picking" by Seamus Heaney 

"An Invitation" by Clemens Starck

"Meditation at Lagunitas" by Robert Hass 

Episode 88: Summer in the Garden

Here's part 2 of the "summer poems" series! This one's for you, Farmer Ben. 

"Putting in the Seed" by Robert Frost

"Cutting the Grass" by Clemens Starck

"In Defense of Our Overgrown Garden" by Matthea Harvey 

Episode 87: Summer Moods

It's AUGUST!

I had a request for some summer poems and got a little carried away.  I hope you like sunshine, blackberries, nostalgia, and love, because this is just the beginning of a 4 part summer poem series. 

We kick off with

"Summer Moods" by John Clare

"The Summer Day" by Mary Oliver

"Mossbawn: Sunlight" by Seamus Heaney

"Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy's Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota" by James Wright

 

Episode 86: Four Walls and a Blackboard

3 school poems to kick off summer break!

"Night" by Jill Osier

"M. Degas Teaches Art & Science at Durfee Intermediate School" by Philip Levine

"Mrs. Smith 1959" by Kim Stafford

Episode 85: Every Time I Say ”I” It Refers To You

A snowy night, phone calls from beyond the grave... this poem has a lot to recommend it. 

 

"Visitors From Abroad" by Louise GlÜck 

Episode 84: Prose Poems From The Garden

Let me read to you-- a handful of poems that take us through the year of a gardener/prose poet who is paying attention.

The book I read from is Going to Seed: Dispatches From the Garden by Charles Goodrich 

Episode 83: ”I’ve Been Sitting Here Thinking Back Over My Life”

Sometimes I take on the humbling challenge of talking about a poem that enthralls me but I don't fully understand it, and some of what I understand I don't like, and I can't talk about it without talking about myself...

Those episodes often end up in the burn pile, but this time I offer it to you. 

 

"I've Been Sitting Here Thinking Back Over My Life" by Charles Wright

Episode 82: Bernini’s Bees

How does she do it? Linda Bierds' best poems about historical figures--inventors, scientists, artists--hold an uncanny sense of discovery and inspiration so strong that I find myself holding my breath while reading.

Today's poem takes us back in time to the studio of the brilliant Italian sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

"Stroke" by Linda Bierds from her book First Hand

Episode 81: Daniel Boone And His Wife Rebecca

A good poet applying his pen and imagination to the inner life of historical figures...this is the human version of catnip for me. In his book A Companion for Owls, Kentucky poet Maurice Manning writes about the frontier life of Daniel and Rebecca Boone. The two poems in this episode are "Born Again" and "A Wife's Tale."

 

Back in episode 17 I shared and discussed "The Pupil" by Maurice Manning

Episode 80: Love and Work and Love

Yes, one of these poems has already been featured on this podcast... but it's absolutely worth hearing again. And this time I got to yak about it a bunch. And read it again. And read a love poem. Enjoy! 

 

"What Work Is" by Philip Levine

Keith Hansen reads it wonderfully in Episode 63 https://takethispoem.podbean.com/e/episode-63-work-and-what-it-is/

"What I Didn't Know Before" by Ada Limon