Martín Espada — After the Goose that Rose Like the God of Geese
Bereavement brings all kinds of pressures. This poem by Martín Espada starts off with a grief-to-do-list: a phone call, a flight, a blizzard, cremations, shipments of ashes, memorial services. After a...
7 Juni 202116min
Roshni Goyate — Coconut Oil
In many ways this poem can be analyzed by how it ends: by examining the contents of organic shops. Roshni Goyate looks at one such item — coconut oil for hair — and considers its long line of history...
4 Juni 202116min
b: william bearhart — When I Was in Las Vegas and Saw a Warhol Painting of Geronimo
When looking at Andy Warhol’s painting of Geronimo — a leader and medicine man of the Bedonkohe band of the Apache tribe — b: william bearheart wonders who the Geronimo of the painting is looking ba...
31 Maj 202114min
Esteban Rodríguez — 22 La Bota
A poet considers his father, and, particularly, his father’s boots. These boots could be a hammer, a prop, a weapon. But Esteban Rodríguez also remembers how his father — a sleepwalker — would walk ou...
28 Maj 202116min
Reginald Dwayne Betts — Essay on Reentry
This ‘Essay on Reentry’ charts life after prison: and the way that others keep your sentence alive even when you’re wishing to just get on with your own life. It’s about secrets and choice and disclos...
24 Maj 202117min
Li-Young Lee — From Blossoms
A poem about blossoms that is not only about blossoms. Li-Young Lee remembers a glorious day when he and a companion bought peaches; peaches that had come from blossoms. And in the taste of peaches, t...
21 Maj 202115min
Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo — Battlegrounds
This poem takes place on battlegrounds. The poet — Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo — is at Gettysburg National Military Park, where she wanders around the cemetery searching for the graves of Mexican soldiers....
17 Maj 202115min
Matthew Olzmann — Mountain Dew Commercial Disguised as a Love Poem
In this love poem, Matthew Olzmann writes about his wife — the poet Vievee Francis whose poem for Matthew was featured in the previous episode — and the reasons why their marriage might work: her cour...
14 Maj 202116min
