Open Windows Podcast

Sounds are incorporated into poems as part of a poet's observational paradigm and thereby shape the meanings of poems. Because many of us are especially attentive to sounds at night and of the night, today I read poems about night sounds by Thomas Hardy, James Joyce, Robert Frost, Maxine Kumin, Carolyn Kizer, and Alejandra Piznarik. I end the program with two of my own poems.

In my program today, I consider paradox and contradiction -- what the Romantic poets referred to as "the balance or reconciliation of opposite or discordant elements or qualities"  -- and the roles they may play in poetry. I read poems by Catullus, an Unknown Poet, Emily Dickinson, Wilfred Owen, Wallace Stevens, and Bob Dylan.  I end the program with two of my own poems.

My program today follows up on my programs about the whiteness and cold of winter. The physical and emotional and aesthetic contexts of winter at the ocean are powerful affirmations of life experienced, so today I read poems about the ocean in winter, celebrating the clarities made possible by whiteness and cold that wraps the sands and waters. I read poems by Walt Whitman, Sara Teasdale, John Betjeman, Thomas McGrath, and Joseph Millar. I end the program with two of my own poems.

My program today is about how poets incorporate the idea of cold and coldness into their poems, to create texture, to control mood and tone, to provide symbolic or metaphoric significances, and to create and direct images that resonate connotatively for different readers. I read poems by Annie Lennox, D.H. Lawrence, Federico Garcia Lorca, William Carlos Williams, Roberta Hill Whiteman, and James Wright. I end the program with two of my own poems.

We had our first significant snowfall and the horizon is white. I was struck by that whiteness, so I read poems today that use the color white -- directly or indirectly -- to create texture, to control mood and tone, to provide symbolic or metaphoric significances, and to create and direct images that resonate connotatively for different readers. I read poems by Emily Dickinson, A.E. Housman, Robert Frost, Philip Larkin, W.S. Merwin, Sylvia Plath, and Wisława Szymborska. I end the program with two of my own poems.

I read poems about the Brooklyn Bridge today, during the beginning of the month named for the two-faced god Janus, and ask you to consider how both this month and bridges point in two directions, both forward and backwards, to the past and to the future, to memory and to prophecy. I read poems by Walt Whitman, Marianne Moore, Hart Crane, Jack Kerouac, Harvey Shapiro, and Alfred Corn.  I end the program with one of my own poems.

Today’s program continues my consideration of December as a time of reflection and remembrance and focuses on several poets we lost this year. I read poems by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Adam Zagajewski, Friederike Mayröcker, Jean Binta Breeze, Robert Bly, and Thomas Kinsella.

Today’s program continues my consideration of December and focuses on poems that incorporate an actual or a metaphorical hearth or fireplace into their lyrical or narrative frames. I read poems by J.R.R. Tolkien, William Butler Yeats, C.K. Williams, Robert Hayden, and Ken Hada.  I end the program with two of my own poems.

Today’s program continues my consideration of the end of the calendar year and is the second of several programs that focus on poets born in December. I read poets who were born in the second week of December, during various decades and in various countries: Bjornstjerne Bjornson, Padraic Colum, Delmore Schwartz, Emily Dickinson, Nelly Sachs, and Grace Paley.

Today’s program continues my consideration of the end of the calendar year and is the first of several programs that will focus on poets born in December. I begin with poets who were born in the first week of December, during various decades and in various countries. I read poems by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Alfred Corn; William Stanley Braithwaite, Joyce Kilmer, Ira Gershwin, Yosano Akiko, and Pearl Cleage.

Today’s program considers the end of the calendar year and some of its significances.  Today, December 1, is the first day of winter in the meteorological calendar. This is the month of the winter solstice; it’s the time of Advent and Christmas in the Christian calendar, Hannukah in the Jewish calendar, and Yule for pagans.  It’s the time when daylight is short and the end of the calendar year, we believe, promises the return of light. So today I’d like to read some poems that consider the idea of light returning to the world. The coming of light, of course, means that there is also darkness that must be conquered or dispelled. That tension between darkness and light is what gives the return of light its ultimate power.  I read poems by Emily Dickinson, Dylan Thomas, Wendell Berry, and Latvian poet Inara Cedrins. I end with one of my own poems that considers the tension between light and dark as well.  

I conclude my readings of poems from books published by Virtual Artists Collective during the course of the past two decades. I read translations into English of poems by women poets of the Tang Dynasty in China: Xue Tao, Li Ye, Yu Xuanji, Cheng Changwen, and palace maid Tianbao.

I continue my reading of poems from books published by Virtual Artists Collective during the course of the past two decades. I read poems by Scott Wiggerman, David Wright, and Agnė Žagrakalytė. I end the program with three of my own poems.

I continue my reading of poems from books published by Virtual Artists Collective during the course of the past two decades. I read poems by Wally Swist, Larry Thomas, Judith Valente, Sarah Webb, and Arisa White.

I continue my reading of poems from books published by Virtual Artists Collective during the course of the past two decades. I read poems by Elizabeth Raby, Li Sen, Steven Schroeder, and Jamie Stern.

I continue my readings of poems from books published by Virtual Artists Collective during the course of the past two decades. I read poems by Lorraine Henrie Lins, Katia Mitova, Li Nan, Donna Pucciani, and Matthias  Regan.  

I continue my reading of poems from books published by Virtual Artists Collective during the course of the past two decades. I read poems by Albert DeGenova, Ken Hada, Laurynas Katkus, Christopher Kelen, and Kerry  Shawn Keys.  

I continue my reading of poems from books published by Virtual Artists Collective during the course of the past two decades. I read poems by Jerry Craven, Sherry Craven, Nitoo Das, Paul Friedrich, and Patricia Goodrich.

I continue my reading of poems from books published by Virtual Artists Collective during the course of the past two decades. I read poems by Sandra Becker, Rosebud Ben-Oni, Daniel Bowman, David Breeden, and Inara Cedrins.  

In my program today, and in several of my programs to come, I will be reading from books published by Virtual Artists Collective during the course of the past two decades. I read poems by Nina Corwin, Christopher Gallinari, Lu Wei, Scott Wiggerman, Tang Danhong,  Li Sen, and Steven Schroeder.