Producer Helena de Groot explores the diverse world of contemporary poetry with readings by poets, interviews with critics, and short poetry documentaries. Nothing is off limits, and nobody is taken too seriously.
Painting From Life
Garth Greenwell on shame, small acts of love, and the patch of snow inside us.
24/9/2024 • 1 hora, 1 minuto, 0 segundos
Fool’s Errand
Idra Novey on exile, stereotypes, and making art the center of your life.
11/9/2024 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Trial and Error
Helena and Nicholson Baker on drawing your loved ones, the horrors of the world, and finding your way back to beauty.
27/8/2024 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Rise Together
Perry Janes on Hollywood, ego, and trying not to break his NDA.
13/8/2024 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
The Magical Element
E.J. Koh on distance, broken English, and writing poems that forgive.
30/7/2024 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Ecology of Love
Camille Dungy on her garden, writing from the provinces, and the poetry of Anne Spencer.
16/7/2024 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Good For the World
Dorothea Lasky on The Shining, writing what you fear, and the ferocity of color.
2/7/2024 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
A Stone Worth Addressing
Merlin Sheldrake on fungi, creativity, and the queerness of nature.
18/6/2024 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Habitual Sins
Elisa Gonzalez on bisexuality, humor, and working in finance.
7/6/2024 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Style All the Way Down
Joyelle McSweeney on sound, style icons, and the Ovidian landscape of her ear canal.
21/5/2024 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
The Fire in Which We Burn
Sara Henning on radical truth, obsessive forms, and letting go of grief.
7/5/2024 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
My Heart and Its Borders
Philip Metres on middle age, writer's block, and praying for the people of Palestine.
23/4/2024 • 1 hora, 0 minutos, 0 segundos
My Awesome Stoma
April Gibson on chronic illness, religion, and being a teenage mother.
9/4/2024 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Working-Class Superheroes
Declan Ryan on his father's construction job, tenderness between boxers, and the inevitable tragic end.
26/3/2024 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
All the Shiny Knives
Monica Rico on cooking, grunt work, and the heat at General Motors.
12/3/2024 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Let Light Form
Nam Le on commerce, irony vs. sincerity, and being in the Arctic.
27/2/2024 • 1 hora, 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Stay in Character
Gregory Pardlo on improv, therapy, and driving around with his father’s ashes.
13/2/2024 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Instructions for Divorce
Caitlin Cowan on rejection, tradwives, and poems from our better self.
30/1/2024 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Make Art for Me
Blake Butler on complex mourning, the suicide of his wife Molly Brodak, and finding his way back.
16/1/2024 • 1 hora, 0 segundos
Poets We Lost in 2023
Remembering the lesbian poet and activist Minnie Bruce Pratt, as well as the Palestinian poet and symbol of the resistance, Refaat Alareer.
3/1/2024 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
The Utopian Business
Steve Zeitlin and Bob Holman on the healing act of writing, small frogs, and politics at the fiddle festival.
12/12/2023 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Cease and Desist
Laura Mullen on academia, death threats, and doing the next brave thing.
30/11/2023 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Falling Off the Stairs
Daniel Brock Johnson on risk, a T-shirt mantra, and life after the death of his friend James Foley.
14/11/2023 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Ghost Sister
Sebastian Merrill on the voice of his former self, the underworld, and laughing during yoga.
31/10/2023 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Living in And Times
Sahar Muradi on cyclical time, leather butterflies, and saying goodbye to her father.
17/10/2023 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Pen Pals
Sean Cole on loneliness, fear of aging, and what poems can do.
3/10/2023 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Notes From the Bathhouse
Eric Sneathen on queer utopia, bad writing, and San Francisco in the ’70s.
19/9/2023 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
The Magic Section
Irène Mathieu on pediatrics, suburbs without a TV, and our body's unknown terrain.
5/9/2023 • 1 hora, 0 minutos, 0 segundos
My Totally Normal Crisis
Natalie Shapero on Wheel of Fortune, babysitting for her landlord, and pretending not to grieve.
22/8/2023 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
The Eldest Daughter
Rosanna Young Oh on her parents’ grocery store, leaving poetry, and the duties of the firstborn.
8/8/2023 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Invisible Hands
Airea D. Matthews on self-interest, starry skies, and her parents’ fateful wedding day.
25/7/2023 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Chaos Reigns
Sophus Helle on empire, Calvin and Hobbes, and the world's first author.
11/7/2023 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
The Fact of a Suitcase
Leslie Sainz on Bill O’Reilly, glassblowing, and the lure of praise.
27/6/2023 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Good Old Sonnet
Diane Seuss on New York in the ’70s, virtue, and her father’s early death.
13/6/2023 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Add Me to the Forest Floor
Katie Farris on cancer, desire, and her early-menopause care package.
30/5/2023 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Let the Record Hide
Paisley Rekdal on maps, Sisyphus, and the dangers of beauty.
16/5/2023 • 1 hora, 0 minutos, 0 segundos
As Best I Could
Aaron Smith on shame, telling the truth, and his mother's last lipstick.
2/5/2023 • 1 hora, 1 minuto, 0 segundos
A Human Joy
Rebecca Gayle Howell and Ashley M. Jones on working-class poems, good food, and their fathers’ bodies.
18/4/2023 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Center Stage
Jennifer Jean on foster care, finding her voice, and loving her father as he was.
4/4/2023 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Mom, I Love You
Mahogany L. Browne on her first kiss, family secrets, and having your book banned.
21/3/2023 • 1 hora, 0 segundos
My Alleged Accident
Janine Joseph on memory loss, car sounds, and a mirror that loves you.
11/3/2023 • 1 hora, 0 minutos, 0 segundos
The Book of Possibilities
Peter Cole on his brother's death, finding his vocation, and the erotic pull of letters.
21/2/2023 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
New Parents
Raymond Antrobus on late-night BBC poetry dubs, real people, and becoming a father.
8/2/2023 • 1 hora, 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Intimate Distance
Gabrielle Bates on betrayal, home church, and living in her mother's slaughterhouse.
24/1/2023 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Sonic Trust Fund
Marisa Tirado on Selena, cow skulls, and the memory of adobe brick.
10/1/2023 • 1 hora, 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Poets We Lost in 2022
Remembering Richard Howard as a poet, mentor, and friend, plus a few words on money by Bernadette Mayer.
27/12/2022 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Attica, Again
Celes Tisdale on similarities, teaching after the uprising, and his mother's favorite poet.
13/12/2022 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Hiding Between the Loaves
Belarussian poets Valzhyna Mort and Julia Cimafiejeva on magic, transformation, and what's hidden underneath the forest floor.
29/11/2022 • 1 hora, 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Please Poem
JoAnna Novak on islands, a plush placenta, and a gift from the suicide hotline.
15/11/2022 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Give Me a Sign
Alexandra Lytton Regalado on fate, snake mirrors, and the daily work of letting go.
1/11/2022 • 1 hora, 1 minuto, 0 segundos
As I Am
Ama Codjoe on normal naked bodies, solving problems, and her childfree life.
4/10/2022 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
The Land Is the Center
Noʻu Revilla on ancestral history in newspapers, ocean consciousness, and how to be a guest.
20/9/2022 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Remember Every Ginseng Seed
Chelsea Harlan on knowledge, creaturehood, and the quest for her mother’s secret sadness.
6/9/2022 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Before We Return to Dust
André Naffis-Sahely on desert sand, rootlessness, and the long shadow of fascism.
23/8/2022 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
The Future Trembles
Elisa Gabbert on commitment, boredom, and the poem as theater.
9/8/2022 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Trickster God
Saeed Jones on accuracy, being funny, and creating what we need.
26/7/2022 • 1 hora, 0 minutos, 0 segundos
The Healing Brush
Chantal Gibson on ancestors, laundry, and Frantz Fanon for beginners.
14/7/2022 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Yelling Down the Phone
Nina Mingya Powles on muscle memory, Haka tutorials, and the shock of home.
28/6/2022 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Telling the Truth
Niina Pollari on sunflowers, redemption, and the most depressing phone note in the world.
14/6/2022 • 0 minutos
Team Mystery
Victoria Chang on bonsai trees, witticisms, and the wisdom of not giving a crap.
31/5/2022 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
All There Is
Tom Sleigh about his romance with experience, fancy jackets, and one last visit to the dog beach.
17/5/2022 • 1 hora, 0 minutos, 0 segundos
The Neverending Quest
Sylvie Kandé and her translator Alexander Dickow on the courage of migrants, the limits of language, and an epic without a nation.
3/5/2022 • 1 hora, 0 minutos, 0 segundos
The Body You Control
Kim Moore on playing the trumpet, misogyny, and the men we love.
19/4/2022 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Pushing the Ear
Tommye Blount on transformation, Kids Incorporate, and the joy of drowning in diction.
5/4/2022 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Blossoms in Ukraine
Oksana Maksymchuk and Oksana Lutsyshyna on life as a refugee, the God of comfort, and the deep roots of the war.
22/3/2022 • 1 hora, 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Listen for My Name
Julie Enszer and Elena Gross on community care, the AIDS epidemic, and OutWrite, the conference that shaped queer literary history.
8/3/2022 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Ghost Diplomat
Hoa Nguyen on photographs, her mother's past with the motorcycle circus, and the quiet ways to talk to ghosts.
22/2/2022 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
My Body, My Stones
Poet and playwright Malcolm Tariq on listening, field trips with his brother, and the perils of dating while Black.
8/2/2022 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
The Big Hollow
Kaveh Akbar on human wondering, fat squirrels, and the best spouse in the world.
25/1/2022 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
A Little Wrong
Bianca Stone on family trauma, wrinkled towels, and the case against self-improvement.
10/1/2022 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Poets We Lost in 2021
Remembering the life, poetry, and activism of Janice Mirikitani, plus a few words on love by bell hooks.
21/12/2021 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Bird in a Drawer
Keats Conley on smelly ducks, spiders, and the limits of the human perspective.
7/12/2021 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
How to Be a Family of One
Steven Espada Dawson on possibility, toothpaste, and the grief of cosmic aloneness.
23/11/2021 • 1 hora, 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Heart of a Reporter
Noor Hindi on home ownership, evictions court, and her father's grief.
9/11/2021 • 1 hora, 1 minuto, 0 segundos
A History with Holes
Clint Smith on being human, healing on a plantation, and the difference between Jefferson and Grant.
26/10/2021 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
My Drowning Home
Isabel Duarte-Gray on town gossip, folk remedies, and the music of Kentucky.
13/10/2021 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
When Time is Kind
Poet and priest Spencer Reece on his cousin's murder, the AIDS epidemic, and bearing witness to a moment.
28/9/2021 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Technically Roommates
Chen Chen on nourishment, homophobia, and breaking free of the fear of failure.
14/9/2021 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Leaving and Loving Afghanistan
Zohra Saed on cooking, culture, and the volunteer-led rescue operation to get Afghans to safety.
31/8/2021 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Dante for Today
Mary Jo Bang on her 15-year long translation effort to remake Dante’s Divine Comedy for the modern ear.
10/8/2021 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
My Imagined Incoherence
Tracy Fuad on Yelp reviews, mortality, and the weather in her mind.
27/7/2021 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
The Final Girl
torrin a. greathouse on public transport, horror, and the love of a chosen family.
13/7/2021 • 0 minutos
Parents in a Poem
Raymond Antrobus on forgiving his dad, becoming a father, and poetry dubs on late-night BBC.
29/6/2021 • 1 hora, 1 minuto, 0 segundos
Patterns of Memory
Natasha Trethewey on writing a memoir about her mother’s life and murder.
15/6/2021 • 1 hora, 0 segundos
Not My Face in the Mirror
Vievee Francis (part 2) on beauty in a racist world.
1/6/2021 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Salvation in the Dark
Vievee Francis on dark corners, an encounter with a bear, and the promise of the north.
18/5/2021 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
A Sea of Rhythm
Translator Emily Drumsta geeks out about the poetic patterns in the work of Iraqi modernist Nazik al Mala'ika.
4/5/2021 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Wild at the Root
Molly McCully Brown and Susannah Nevison on Gmail poems, pot roast, and the legacy of pain.
20/4/2021 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
The Light is Going Out
Famous Polish poet Adam Zagajewski remembered by friend and Translator Clare Cavanagh.
6/4/2021 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
A Room of Our Own
Cornelius Eady on Sterling Brown’s South: his porch, banter, and barbershop.
23/3/2021 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Save Everything
Kimiko Hahn on tie-dying on the stove, puns, and her father's things.
9/3/2021 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
The Landscape Within
C. Dale Young on sugar cane fields, his favorite saint, and the machinations of the mind.
23/2/2021 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
This Is a River
Poet and founder of Friends of the Los Angeles River Lewis MacAdams, in the words of his friend Kevin Opstedal.
9/2/2021 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Mad at the Right People
Hafizah Geter on shelves full of Black writers, forgiveness, and knowing your history.
26/1/2021 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
You Get Proud by Practicing
Meg Day on the poetry and activism of the late Laura Hershey, lip reading in a masked world, and the joy of connection.
12/1/2021 • 1 hora, 1 minuto, 0 segundos
Keep Going
A look back at the early days of the pandemic—eight poets about Zoom calls, the egg shortage, and being stranded abroad.
12/1/2021 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Poverty’s History, Episode 2: Let the People Speak
How a Victorian and a Harlem Renaissance poet struggled with poverty and the publishing world—while facing racism and classism—to become widely read and legends to us. Featuring interviews with experts Dr. Gene Jarrett, Dr. Tara Betts, Dr. Elizabeth McHenry, Dr. Joe Trotter, and Dr. R. Baxter Miller.
15/12/2020 • 1 hora, 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Elegies for the Future
Lilly Rosenberg Fellowship winner Khaty Xiong on intergenerational trauma, a chicken's neck, and the long wave of grief.
1/12/2020 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Creatures of Giving
Lilly Rosenberg Fellowship winner Luther Hughes on crows, processing trauma, and the allure of the wind.
17/11/2020 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Start with One Thread
Alexandria Hall on farm sounds, solo time, and the way into a difficult poem.
3/11/2020 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
A Practice of Care
EJ Koh on distance, broken English, and writing poems that forgive.
20/10/2020 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Better Broken Than Whole
Will Harris on mixedness, intimacy, and the music of difficult poems.
6/10/2020 • 1 hora, 0 minutos, 0 segundos
No Place Like Home
Camille Dungy on words, home, and motherhood in times of climate collapse.
22/9/2020 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Words in the Attic
Joy Ladin on the failures of language, courage, and the trans parable of Jonah and the Whale.
8/9/2020 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Heroes History Forgets
Remembering Irish poet Eavan Boland, with her friends Jody Allen Randolph and Paula Meehan.
25/8/2020 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
I Love You, Wanda
Terrance Hayes on Wanda Coleman.
Note from Terrance Hayes: “I cancelled this interview about Wanda Coleman’s work after signing the Poetry Foundation Petition. When the Foundation President and Board chair resigned, I decided to resume the interview believing the actions an indication of the PF’s willingness to change. Though I’m not yet quite convinced I should resume submitting my own poems to the magazine, I hope this interview represents a willingness to remain in dialogue as PF rises to meet the other demands and challenges. Do check out the work of Wanda Coleman."
To learn more: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/LetterOfCommitment
11/8/2020 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
The Bureau Under Your Bed
Interrogating the government’s half century of surveillance of Black writers.
21/7/2020 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Empire State of Mind
Take a walk through post-WWI Paris in this recently reissued Modernist epic.
7/7/2020 • 0 minutos
The Fire This Time
Gwendolyn Brooks, Elizabeth Alexander, and Haki Madhubuti on America’s perennial struggle to recognize that Black Lives Matter.
3/6/2020 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
I Come From Love
Nikky Finney on her father, her childhood, and the memories that made her.
26/5/2020 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Phillis Reimagined
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers on listening to her ancestors.
12/5/2020 • 0 minutos, 1 segundo
Poverty’s History, Episode 1: In the Beginning Was the Word
The first installment of a special series about the intersections between poetry and poverty.
29/4/2020 • 1 hora, 0 minutos, 0 segundos
The Invention of the Self
Peter Murphy on a 16th-century poem that still speaks to us today.
14/4/2020 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Our New Reality
Quarantined with kids, Zoom chats, and stranded abroad: eight poets on what life is like for them these days.
31/3/2020 • 0 minutos, 1 segundo
Poems You Can Touch
Dorianne Laux on her favorite shirt, ugly California, and bringing her mother back to life.
17/3/2020 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
The Eternal Present
Biographer Jonathan Blunk on the life and longing of James Wright.
Need a transcript of this episode? Request a transcript here.
3/3/2020 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
The Sovereign Poet
Layli Long Soldier on the sacred and the useful.
18/2/2020 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
The Truth Sometimes Rhymes
Jericho Brown wants to make rebellious art.
4/2/2020 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Fragments from the Future
Brenda Shaughnessy stares her fears in the face.
21/1/2020 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Dreams and Fathers
Bruce Beasley on his writing process, and on how fathers might be like warm ice cubes.
7/1/2020 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Poets We Lost This Year
Timothy Liu remembers the life and work of his friend Linda Gregg, plus readings by Marie Ponsot and W.S. Merwin.
18/12/2019 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
The Point of Poetry
Matthew Zapruder on dreams, silence, and smoking with Brodsky.
3/12/2019 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
How to Triumph Like a Girl
Ada Limón is done with hiding in poems.
19/11/2019 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
A Presence in the Sky
Fanny Howe gives away the secret to being cavalier and brave.
5/11/2019 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
The Garden We Share
Ross Gay finds joy in life that outlives us.
22/10/2019 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
After Fear and Raging
Toi Derricotte on feeling part of something bigger.
1/10/2019 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Hope in Odd Places
Sally Wen Mao reanimates the past.
10/9/2019 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Back to School
Two teachers on life through children's eyes.
27/8/2019 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
What Happened to House Calls?
The healthcare industry through the eyes of two doctor-poets.
13/8/2019 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Lichen Doesn't Die
Forrest Gander talks about love, loss, and the remarkable properties of lichen.
23/7/2019 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
The Young People's Poet Laureate
Naomi Shihab Nye talks about a trunk full of treasures, childhood in Palestine, and her grandson's poetic bone.
2/7/2019 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Speaking for the Country
A look into the various approaches to the U.S. poet laureate position.
18/6/2019 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
Whitman and our Warming World
On Whitman's bicentennial, a contemporary poet finds a Whitmanic kinship with wonder, language, and the environment.
4/6/2019 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
The Past Talks Back
Marilyn Nelson's poetic legacy, through the eyes of one of her many protégés, Tyehimba Jess.
21/5/2019 • 0 minutos
The Language of Ramadan
Two Muslim American poets discuss the intersections between poetry and Ramadan.
7/5/2019 • 0 minutos, 0 segundos
What You Have Heard is True
Carolyn Forché discusses her memoir of the same title, about her time in pre-civil war El Salvador in the late 1970s.