Tag Archives: poetry

Podcast

Rita Dove, COLLECTED POEMS & Thanksgiving on WV

Poet Rita Dove talks about her Collected Poems 1974-2004, published by W.W. Norton. Then, we honor our Thanksgiving tradition of airing Marge Bruchac’s true story of Thanksgiving and a reading of Francesca’s story, The Food Philosophe. Continue reading

Podcast

Remembering Poet Richard Wilbur

One of our favorite poets passed away on October 14, 2017. The great American poet Richard Wilbur was 96 years old. We remember him with a re-broadcast of our 2009 conversation with him at his home in Cummington, Massachusetts.

Author Christian McEwen and I spoke with Wilbur about his life, poetry and translations. He also read some of his poems to us in his beautifully resonant voice.

But first, we hear a clip from our 2007 interview with Jeanne Braham, author of The Light Within the Light: Portraits of Donald Hall, Richard Wilbur, Maxine Kumin, and Stanley Kunitz. Braham gives us her thoughts about the poet. Continue reading

Web Extras

Web Extra: Voices from the January 15 Writers Resist event in New York City

Writers all around the nation gathered on January 15 to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday in a spirit of resistance to the incoming administration of Donald J. Trump.

The national event was called Writers Resist. In New York, Francesca traveled to the New York Public Library at 42nd Street to mingle with a crowd of more than 2,000 gathered to hear writers read from works of resistance by themselves and others at a podium set up between the iconic library lions. Continue reading

Podcast

Katy Simpson Smith, Mary Costello & Poet Amy Dryansky

Katy Simpson Smith talks about her new novel, Free Men. Then in the second half of the show, we replay our 2014 interview with Smith about her acclaimed first novel, Story of Land And Sea. Also, we review Academy Street by Mary Costello and hear two poems by Amy Dryansky. Continue reading

Podcast

LeslÁ©a Newman, I Carry My Mother & Martine Bellen, This Amazing Cage Of Light

LeslÁ©a Newman talks about her latest book of poetry, I Carry My Mother (Headmistress Press, 2015). The elegiac volume is composed of poems chronicling her mother’s last illness and dying, as well as her own grief.

Then, poet Martine Bellen reads from and discusses her new collection, This Amazing Cage of Light: New And Selected Poems (Spuyten Duyvil Press, 2015). Inspired by myth, history and everyday life, her evocative poems explore identity and connection.  Continue reading

Podcast

Following The Thread of History To Find Ourselves

David Laskin talks about his family memoir of Jewish life in the twentieth century, The Family: Three Journeys into the Heart of the Twentieth Century. Then, a poet’s dialog with the 1886 diary of an ordinary woman: Sarah Sousa talks about her books, Diary of Esther Small, 1886 and Church of Needles.

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Podcast

Nell Bernstein, BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE & Kathy Engel on poetry for peace

Kathy Engel
Nell Bernstein
Kathy Engel
Kathy Engel

Nell Bernstein talks about her book, Burning Down the House: The End of Juvenile Prison (New Press.) And we hear from poet Kathy Engel about using poetry to promote peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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Podcast

Scott Chaskey, SEEDTIME

Scott Chaskey
Scott Chaskey

Seedtime cvrPoet and farmer Scott Chaskey talks about his new book, Seedtime: The History, Husbandry, Politics and Promise of Seeds.

In the book, Chaskey considers “the web of biodiversity and resilience at the heart of our cultural inheritance” by weaving history, politics, botany, literature, mythology, and memoir into his profoundly moving book.

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Podcast

Jim Sterba, NATURE WARS

Jim Sterba
Jim Sterba

Journalist Jim Sterba talks about the growing battles over wildlife in America’s cities and suburbs — about deer, beavers, geese, bears, feral cats and more. His book is NATURE WARS: The Incredible Story of How Wildlife Comebacks Turned Backyards into Battlegrounds. It’s about the resurgence of wildlife into areas of human habitation and the resulting struggles to balance human and wildlife needs.

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Podcast

Leah Vincent, CUT ME LOOSE and Amy Dryansky, GRASS WHISTLE

Leah Vincent
Leah Vincent
Amy Dryansky
Amy Dryansky

Leah Vincent talks about her memoir Cut Me Loose: Sin and Salvation After My Ultra-Orthodox Girlhood. And April is poetry month; we talk with poet Amy Dryansky about her new poetry volume, Grass Whistle, and about balancing being a mother and a poet.

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Web Extras

Amy Dryansky reads from Grass Whistle

amy-dryanskyAmy Dryansky reads her poem “Lost and Found” from her poetry collection Grass Whistle.

Grass Whistle has been named a “must-read” by the Massachusetts Center for the Book and is one of six finalists for the MA Book Award in Poetry.GW

Podcast

John Rennie Short, STRESS TESTING THE USA & John Michael Greer, GREEN WIZARDRY

John Rennie Short
John Rennie Short
John Michael Greer
John Michael Greer

John Rennie Short talks about dealing with disasters; his book is Stress Testing The USA: Public Policy and Reaction to Disaster Events. And could simple, affordable, appropriate technology be the solution to surviving the post industrial future? John Michael Greer says yes! His book is Green Wizardry: Conservation, Solar Power, Organic Gardening, and Other Hands-On Skills From the Appropriate Tech Toolkit.

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Podcast

Rob Okun, VOICE: MALE & Honor Moore, POEMS FROM THE WOMEN’S MOVEMENT

Rob Okun
Rob Okun
Honor Moore
Honor Moore

Rob Okun talks about the collection of essays he edited, VOICE MALE: The Untold Story of the Pro-feminist Men’s Movement. Then we re-air our 2009 interview with feminist poet Honor Moore about the anthology she edited, Poems From The Women’s Movement. Continue reading

Podcast

Rebecca Solnit, THE FARAWAY NEARBY & Martine Bellen, THE WABAC MACHINE

Rebecca Solnit
Rebecca Solnit
Martine Bellen
Martine Bellen

Rebecca Solnit talks about her latest book, THE FARAWAY NEARBY (Viking, 2013.) It weaves memoir, history and natural science into a contemplation of the stories that define, comfort, and entrap and free us. And Martine Bellen reads from and tells us about her new poetry collection, THE WABAC MACHINE (Furniture Press Books, 2013.)

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Web Extras

Martine Bellen, THE WABAC MACHINE: Unabridged Interview

Martine Bellen
Martine Bellen

Reading the poetry of Martine Bellen is an excursion into a fascinating labyrinth of language that evokes multiple meanings. Her work is more to be experienced with the heart than dissected with the mind.

Her latest poetry collection is The Wabac Machine — with reference both to the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, as well as to the past iterations of the internet. Fellow poet Charles North wrote:

Martine Bellen’s psychological and linguistic adventures in poetry are unlike anyone else’s. Celebrating the instabilities of our experience, her poems maneuver kaleidoscopically between ordinary life and myth or fairy tale, vital human concerns such as identity and dreamlike atmospheres where nothing stays as it appears for long. Her “host of unlikely divinities” display a reality that is never ordinary, always evocative.

Bellen is the author of eight collections of poetry including Tales of Murasaki and Other Poems, which won the National Poetry Series Award; as well as the novella 2X(Squared) and several librettos for opera. Bellen is a contributing editor of the literary journal Conjunctions.

A Zen practitioner, Bellen says there is an intimate connection between Zen Buddhism and poetry — a connection that informs her work. She explores that connection more deeply in the unabridged version of our conversation.