Today’s poem is by Philip Arthur Larkin CH CBE FRSL (9 August 1922 – 2 December 1985), an English poet, novelist, and librarian. His first book of poetry, The North Ship , was published in 1945, followed by two novels, Jill (1946) and A Girl in Winter (1947), and he came to prominence in 1955 with the publication of his second collection of poems, The Less Deceived , followed by The Whitsun Weddings (1964) and High Windows (1974). He contributed to The Daily Telegraph as its jazz critic from 196...
Aug 15, 2023•11 min
Today’s poem is by Thomas Lux (December 10, 1946 – February 5, 2017), an American poet who held the Margaret T. and Henry C. Bourne, Jr. Chair in Poetry at the Georgia Institute of Technology and ran Georgia Tech's "Poetry @ Tech" program. [1] [2] He wrote fourteen books of poetry. [3] —Bio via Wikipedia This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe...
Aug 14, 2023•10 min
Today’s poem is by Seamus Justin Heaney MRIA ( /ˈʃeɪməs ˈhiːni/ ; 13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013), an Irish poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature . [1] [2] Among his best-known works is Death of a Naturalist (1966), his first major published volume. Heaney was and is still recognised as one of the principal contributors to poetry in Ireland during his lifetime. American poet Robert Lowell described him as "the most important Irish poet since Yeats ", and...
Aug 11, 2023•14 min
Today’s poem is by John Lawrence Ashbery [1] (July 28, 1927 – September 3, 2017) , an American poet and art critic. [2] Ashbery is considered the most influential American poet of his time. Oxford University literary critic John Bayley wrote that Ashbery "sounded, in poetry, the standard tones of the age." [3] Langdon Hammer, chair of the English Department at Yale University , wrote in 2008, "No figure looms so large in American poetry over the past 50 years as John Ashbery" and "No American po...
Jul 27, 2023•11 min
Today’s poem is by Matthea Harvey , the author of five books of poetry— If the Tabloids are True What Are You? , Of Lamb (an illustrated erasure with images by Amy Jean Porter), Modern Life (a finalist for the National Book Critics Cirlcle Award and a New York Times Notable Book), Sad Little Breathing Machine and Pity the Bathtub Its Forced Embrace of the Human Form . She has also published two children’s books, Cecil the Pet Glacier , illustrated by Giselle Potter and The Little General and the...
Jul 26, 2023•7 min
Today’s poem is by Theodore J. Kooser (born 25 April 1939) [1] , an American poet . He won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 2005. He served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004 to 2006. [2] Kooser was one of the first poets laureate selected from the Great Plains, [3] and is known for his conversational style of poetry. [4] —bio via Wikipedia This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ...
Jul 26, 2023•10 min
Today’s poem is by Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany FRSL ( /dʌnˈseɪni/ ; 24 July 1878 – 25 October 1957, usually Lord Dunsany ) was an Anglo-Irish writer and dramatist. Over 90 volumes of fiction, essays, poems and plays appeared in his lifetime, [1] : 29 (I.A.92) and a modest amount of material was published posthumously. He gained a name in the 1910s as a great writer in the English-speaking world. Best known today are the 1924 fantasy novel, The King of Elfland's Daugh...
Jul 25, 2023•13 min
Today’s poem is by Priscilla Denise Levertov (24 October 1923 – 20 December 1997), a British-born naturalised American poet. [3] She was a recipient of the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry . Levertov wrote and published 24 books of poetry, and also criticism and translations. She also edited several anthologies. Among her many awards and honours, she received the Shelley Memorial Award , the Robert Frost Medal , the Lenore Marshall Prize , the Lannan Award , a grant from the National Institute o...
Jul 20, 2023•5 min
Today’s poem is by Robert Morgan (born 1944), an American poet , short story writer, and novelist. He studied at North Carolina State University as an engineering and mathematics major, transferred to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as an English major, graduating in 1965, and completed an MFA degree at the University of North Carolina Greensboro in 1968. He has taught at Cornell University since 1971, and was appointed Professor of English in 1984. [1] —Bia via Wikipedia This is...
Jul 19, 2023•6 min
Today’s poem is by Mary Jane Oliver (September 10, 1935 – January 17, 2019), an American poet who won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize . Her work is inspired by nature, rather than the human world, stemming from her lifelong passion for solitary walks in the wild. It is characterised by a sincere wonderment at the impact of natural imagery, conveyed in unadorned language. In 2007, she was declared to be the country's best-selling poet. —Bia via Wikipedia This is a public episode. I...
Jul 18, 2023•11 min
Today’s poem is by Pablo Neruda ( /nəˈruːdə/ ; [1] Spanish: [ˈpaβlo neˈɾuða] ( listen ))(born Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto ; 12 July 1904 – 23 September 1973), a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature . [2] Neruda became known as a poet when he was 13 years old, and wrote in a variety of styles, including surrealist poems, historical epics , political manifestos , a prose autobiography , and passionate love poems such as the ones in his collecti...
Jul 12, 2023•11 min
Today’s poem is by Thomas Merton OCSO (January 31, 1915 – December 10, 1968), an American Trappist monk, writer, theologian, mystic , poet, social activist and scholar of comparative religion . On May 26, 1949, he was ordained to the Catholic priesthood and given the name "Father Louis". [1] [2] He was a member of the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani , near Bardstown, Kentucky , living there from 1941 to his death. Merton wrote more than 50 books in a period of 27 years, [3] mostly on spiritualit...
Jul 07, 2023•11 min
Today’s poem is by Donald Andrew Hall Jr. [1] (September 20, 1928 – June 23, 2018), an American poet, writer, editor and literary critic. He was the author of over 50 books across several genres from children's literature, biography, memoir, essays, and including 22 volumes of verse. Hall was a graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy , Harvard , and Oxford . [2] Early in his career, he became the first poetry editor of The Paris Review (1953–1961), the quarterly literary journal, and was noted for i...
Jul 06, 2023•12 min
Today’s poem is by Walter Whitman Jr. ( /ˈhwɪtmən/ ; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892), an American poet, essayist, and journalist. He is considered one of the most influential poets in American history. Whitman incorporated both transcendentalism and realism in his writings and is often called the father of free verse . [1] Whitman's major poetry collection, Leaves of Grass , first published in 1855, was financed with his own money and became well known. The work was an attempt to reach out to the...
Jul 06, 2023•17 min
Today’s poem is by Emma Lazarus (July 22, 1849 – November 19, 1887), an American author of poetry, prose, and translations, as well as an activist for Jewish and Georgist causes. She is remembered for writing the sonnet " The New Colossus ", which was inspired by the Statue of Liberty , in 1883. [1] Its lines appear inscribed on a bronze plaque, installed in 1903, [2] on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. [3] Lazarus was involved in aiding refugees to New York who had fled antisemitic pogrom...
Jul 04, 2023•16 min
Today’s poem is by Walter Whitman Jr. ( /ˈhwɪtmən/ ; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892), an American poet, essayist, and journalist. He is considered one of the most influential poets in American history. Whitman incorporated both transcendentalism and realism in his writings and is often called the father of free verse . [1] Whitman's major poetry collection, Leaves of Grass , first published in 1855, was financed with his own money and became well known. The work was an attempt to reach out to the...
Jul 03, 2023•8 min
Today’s poem is Thomas Lux (December 10, 1946 – February 5, 2017), an American poet who held the Margaret T. and Henry C. Bourne, Jr. Chair in Poetry at the Georgia Institute of Technology and ran Georgia Tech's "Poetry @ Tech" program. [1] [2] He wrote fourteen books of poetry. [3] —Bio via Wikipedia This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe...
Jun 29, 2023•16 min
Today’s poem is by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886), an American poet. Little-known during her life, she has since been regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry . [2] Despite Dickinson's prolific writing, only ten poems and a letter were published during her lifetime. After her younger sister Lavinia discovered the collection of nearly 1800 poems, Dickinson's first volume was published four years after her death. Until Thomas H. Johnson publish...
Jun 28, 2023•6 min
Today’s poem is by Francis Russell " Frank " O'Hara (March 27, 1926 – July 25, 1966), an American writer, poet, and art critic. A curator at the Museum of Modern Art , O'Hara became prominent in New York City's art world. O'Hara is regarded as a leading figure in the New York School , an informal group of artists, writers, and musicians who drew inspiration from jazz, surrealism , abstract expressionism , action painting , and contemporary avant-garde art movements. —Bio via Wikipedia This is a ...
Jun 28, 2023•8 min
Today’s poem is by Alicia Elsbeth Stallings (born July 2, 1968), an American poet, translator, and essayist. Stallings has published five books of original verse: Archaic Smile (1999), Hapax (2006), Olives (2012), Like (2018), and This Afterlife (2022). She has published verse translations of Lucretius 's De Rerum Natura ( The Nature of Things ) and Hesiod's Works and Days , both with Penguin Classics , and a translation of The Battle of the Frogs and the Mice . She has been awarded the Willis B...
Jun 21, 2023•13 min
Today’s poem is by Musō Soseki (夢窓 疎石, 1275 – October 20, 1351), a Rinzai Zen Buddhist monk and teacher, and a calligraphist, poet and garden designer. The most famous monk of his time, he is also known as Musō Kokushi (夢窓国師, "national [Zen] teacher Musō"), an honorific conferred on him by Emperor Go-Daigo . [1] His mother was the daughter of Hōjō Masamura (1264–1268), seventh Shikken (regent) of the Kamakura shogunate . —Bio via Wikipedia This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this ...
Jun 20, 2023•6 min
Today’s poem is by Scott Cairns. Cairns is the author of ten collections of poetry, one collection of translations of Christian mystics, one spiritual memoir (now translated into Greek and Romanian), a book-length essay on suffering, and co-edited The Sacred Place with Scott Olsen, an anthology of poetry, fiction and nonfiction. It won the inaugural National Outdoor Book Award (Outdoor Literature category) in 1997. He wrote the libretto for "The Martyrdom of Saint Polycarp", an oratorio composed...
Jun 20, 2023•6 min
Today’s poem is by Kathleen Norris (born July 27, 1947), an American poet and essayist. She is the author Dakota: A Spiritual Geography , The Cloister Walk (1996), The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and "Women's Work" (1998), and other books. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe...
Jun 18, 2023•10 min
Today’s poem is by Theodore Huebner Roethke ( /ˈrɛtki/ RET-kee ; [1] May 25, 1908 – August 1, 1963), an American poet. He is regarded as one of the most accomplished and influential poets of his generation, having won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1954 for his book The Waking , and the annual National Book Award for Poetry on two occasions: in 1959 for Words for the Wind , [2] and posthumously in 1965 for The Far Field . [3] [4] His work was characterized by its introspection, rhythm and natu...
Jun 15, 2023•8 min
Today’s poem is by Robert Herrick (baptised 24 August 1591 – buried 15 October 1674) [1] , a 17th-century English lyric poet and Anglican cleric . He is best known for Hesperides , a book of poems. This includes the carpe diem poem " To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time ", with the first line "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may". —Bio via Wikipedia This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscrib...
Jun 14, 2023•10 min
Today’s poem is by William Butler Yeats [a] (13 June 1865 – 28 January 1939), an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and politician. One of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature , he was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish literary establishment who helped to found the Abbey Theatre . In his later years, he served two terms as a Senator of the Irish Free State . Yeats was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923. —Bio via Wikipedia This is ...
Jun 14, 2023•10 min
Today poem is by Wystan Hugh Auden ( /ˈwɪstən ˈhjuː ˈɔːdən/ ; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973 [1] ), a British-American poet . Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics , morals , love , and religion , and its variety in tone , form , and content . Some of his best known poems are about love, such as " Funeral Blues "; on political and social themes, such as " September 1, 1939 " and " The Shield of Achilles "; on cultural and psychol...
Jun 09, 2023•8 min
Today’s poem is by Robert Louis Stevenson (born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson ; 13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894), a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as Treasure Island , Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde , Kidnapped and A Child's Garden of Verses . -Bio via Wikipedia This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe...
Jun 08, 2023•5 min
Today’s poem is by Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks (June 7, 1917 – December 3, 2000), an American poet, author, and teacher. Her work often dealt with the personal celebrations and struggles of ordinary people in her community. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry on May 1, 1950, for Annie Allen , [1] making her the first African American to receive a Pulitzer Prize . [2] [3] -Bio via Wikipedia This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus epis...
Jun 07, 2023•11 min
Robert L. Hass (born March 1, 1941) is an American poet. He served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995 to 1997. [1] He won the 2007 National Book Award [2] and shared the 2008 Pulitzer Prize [3] for the collection Time and Materials: Poems 1997–2005. [4] In 2014 he was awarded the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets . [5] Bio via Wikipedia To support this show, please visit dailypoempod.substack.com Sponsor link: circeinstitute.org/books This is a public episode....
Jun 06, 2023•9 min
