The Daily Poem - podcast cover

The Daily Poem

Goldberry Studios dailypoempod.substack.com
The Daily Poem offers one essential poem each weekday morning. From Shakespeare and John Donne to Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson, The Daily Poem curates a broad and generous audio anthology of the best poetry ever written, read-aloud by David Kern and an assortment of various contributors. Some lite commentary is included and the shorter poems are often read twice, as time permits. The Daily Poem is presented by Goldberry Studios.

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Episodes

Two for the Fourth

Today’s (frequently-paired) poems form an antiphonal song between Walt Whitman and Langston Hughes on the complicated ideal of “being American.” Happy Independence Day and Happy Reading! 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

Jul 04, 20246 min

Grace Schulman's "American Solitude"

Today’s poem is lovely, dark, and deep. Loneliness, Americana, Edward Hopper, literary illusions, clams: it has it all. Happy reading! Poet and editor Grace Schulman (b. 1935) was born Grace Waldman in New York City, the only child of a Polish Jewish immigrant father and a seventh-generation American mother. She studied at Bard College and earned her BA from American University and her PhD from New York University. She is Distinguished Professor of English at Baruch College, CUNY, and served as ...

Jul 03, 202418 min

John Ciardi's "Mummy Slept Late and Daddy Fixed Breakfast"

Today’s poem from John Ciardi goes out to all of the dads who can cook, all of the dads who can’t, all of the children who have endured the latter, and all of the moms who deserve to sleep late more often. Happy reading! 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

Jul 02, 20242 min

Edgar Allan Poe's "To Helen"

In today’s poem, Poe offers us an ode to the Homeric beauty that is also definitely giving some Stacy’s-mom vibes. 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

Jul 01, 20249 min

Emily Dickinson's "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,"

On one of her darker days, Emily Dickinson dreams of a fate worse than death. Happy(?) reading. 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 28, 202411 min

Paul Laurence Dunbar's "The Lawyers' Ways"

Happy birthday to the trailblazing Paul Laurence Dunbar. For more meditations on “lawyers’ ways,” come join our discussion of To Kill a Mockingbird over on the Close Reads Podcast! 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 28, 20245 min

Adam's "Bone of My Bone"

Though rarely anthologized or even contemplated as such, today’s poem is arguably the very first–and its a solid beginning. Happy reading. 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 26, 20246 min

William Butler Yeats' "Brown Penny"

Today’s poem is one of the purest and most earnest offerings from one of the most indefatigable lover-poets of the twentieth century. Happy reading! 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 25, 20248 min

Marianne Moore's "Silence"

Marianne Craig Moore (November 15, 1887 – February 5, 1972) was an American modernist poet, critic, translator, and editor. Her poetry is noted for its formal innovation, precise diction, irony, and wit. She was nominated for the 1968 Nobel Prize in Literature. - 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 24, 202410 min

Matthew Hollis' "The Diomedes"

Today’s poem comes from Matthew Hollis’ remarkable collection, Earth House , which blends explorations of the four cardinal directions and original translations of Anglo-Saxon verse from the Exeter Book. Matthew Hollis was born in Norwich in 1971, and now lives in London. His debut Ground Water (Bloodaxe Books, 2004) was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, the Whitbread Poetry Award and the Forward Prize for Best First Collection; it was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. He is co-...

Jun 21, 202410 min

Jim Daniels' "Short-Order Cook"

Today’s poem goes out to all the unsung heroes of the grease trap and the fry basket. Happy reading. Jim Daniels is the author of numerous collections of poetry, most recently The Middle Ages (Red Mountain Press, 2018) and Street Calligraphy (Steel Toe Books, 2017). His third collection, Places/Everyone (University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), won the inaugural Brittingham Prize in Poetry in 1985. He lives in Pittsburgh and is the Thomas Stockham University Professor of English at Carnegie Mellon ...

Jun 20, 20248 min

Lucille Clifton's "cutting greens"

Lucille Clifton was born in Depew, New York, on June 27, 1936. Her first book of poems, Good Times (Random House, 1969), was rated one of the best books of the year by the New York Times . Clifton remained employed in state and federal government positions until 1971, when she became a writer in residence at Coppin State College in Baltimore, Maryland, where she completed two collections: Good News About the Earth (Random House, 1972) and An Ordinary Woman (Random House, 1974). She was the autho...

Jun 20, 202410 min

Robert Graves' "I'd Love to Be a Fairy's Child"

Captain Robert von Ranke Graves (24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985) was an English poet, soldier, historical novelist and critic. His father was Alfred Perceval Graves, a celebrated Irish poet and figure in the Gaelic revival; they were both Celticists and students of Irish mythology. Robert Graves produced more than 140 works in his lifetime. His poems, his translations and innovative analysis of the Greek myths, his memoir of his early life—including his role in World War I— Good-Bye to All That ...

Jun 18, 20244 min

Carl Sandburg's "Fog"

Today’s economical little poem from Carl Sandburg is jam-packed with allusion and metaphor. Happy reading. 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 17, 20245 min

Donald Davidson's "Lee in the Mountains" Pt. 2

The conclusion to yesterday’s poem. Happy reading. 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 14, 20245 min

Donald Davidson's "Lee in the Mountains" Pt. 1

Today, while the host works in the mountains, we are featuring the first half of a longer poem by Fugitive poet Donald Davidson, imagining the inner agonies of a Robert E. Lee in retirement. Part 2 tomorrow. Associated with the Fugitives and Southern Agrarians, poet Donald (Grady) Davidson was born in Tennessee and earned both a BA and an MA from Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Davidson published five collections of poetry The Outland Piper (1924), The Tall Man (1927), Lee in the Mountains a...

Jun 13, 20246 min

Robert Bly's "The Moon"

Robert Bly (born December 23, 1926, in Madison, Minnesota) is the author of more than thirty books of poetry, including Stealing Sugar from the Castle: Selected Poems (W. W. Norton, 2013); Talking into the Ear of a Donkey: Poems (W. W. Norton, 2011); Reaching Out to the World: New and Selected Prose Poems (White Pine Press, 2009); My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy (HarperCollins, 2005); The Night Abraham Called to the Stars (HarperCollins, 2001); Loving a Woman in Two Worlds (Dial Press, 1...

Jun 12, 20247 min

Jane Kenyon's "Otherwise"

Jane Kenyon (1947–1995), former Poet Laureate of New Hampshire, was the author of four volumes of poetry. Her collected poems were published by Graywolf Press in 2007. 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 11, 20248 min

R. S. Gwynn's "Shakespearean Sonnet"

Today’s poem isn’t what you think, until you do some thinking–then its exactly what you thought. R. S. Gwynn (born 1948) is the author of six collections of poetry, including Dogwatch (2014) and the University of Missouri Breakthrough Award winner The Drive-In (1986). - bio via Library of Congress 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 10, 20247 min

William Shakespeare's Sonnet 94 ("They that have power")

Today’s poem, a lover’s plea disguised as a meditation on virtuous restraint, marks the end of our week of sonnets. Happy reading. 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 07, 202410 min

William Shakespeare's Sonnet 73 ("That time of year...")

Today’s sonnet details a painful reality: even great poets lose their hair sometimes. 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 05, 20247 min

William Shakespeare's Sonnet 55 ("Not marble...")

Today, a (biased) case for poems as the monuments that can outlast monuments. 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 05, 20247 min

William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 ("Shall I compare thee...")

Today’s poem–arguably the Bard’s most famous sonnet–will set the stage for four days of dramatically underrated Shakespearean sonnets. Happy reading! 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 03, 20249 min

Oliver Herford's "The Early Owl"

From a New York Times obituary of Oliver Herford (1860-1935): "His wit…was too original at first to go down with the very delectable highly respectable magazine editors of the Nineties. It was odd, unexpected, his own brand. It takes genius to write the best nonsense, which is often far more sensible than sense. Herford's, the result of care and polish, looked unforced.…Intelligent, thoughtful, well-bred, what with his animals and his children and his artistic simplicities, he was remote from th...

May 31, 20243 min

A. A. Milne's "Bad Sir Brian Botany"

Today’s poem is a good reminder about noblesse obliges. Happy reading! 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

May 30, 20244 min

Robert Louis Stevenson's "My Bed is a Boat"

Today’s poem might be a perfect companion to a bedtime-reading of Where the Wild Things Are on a balmy summer evening. 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

May 29, 20244 min

Hilaire Belloc's "Rebecca, Who Slammed Doors for Fun and Perished Miserably"

Today’s poem is another from Belloc–one of his Cautionary Tales for Children just in time for the beginning of a quiet summer (maybe?). 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

May 28, 20248 min

Hilaire Belloc's "On the Gift of a Book to a Child"

Today’s poem is a series of increasingly vital pleas. Happy reading. For more of Belloc’s advice to the young, find yourself a copy of Cautionary Tales for Children ! 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...

May 27, 20244 min

Bonus: "Morituri Salutamus" in full

Today we’re feeling out a Saturday bonus episode featuring a reading of “Morituri Salutamus” in its entirety. Happy reading! 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

May 25, 202416 min
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