Today’s poem demonstrates that, unlike Arnold’s sideburns, loving the Bard never goes out of style. Although remembered now for his elegantly argued critical essays, Matthew Arnold, born in Laleham, Middlesex, on December 24, 1822, began his career as a poet, winning early recognition as a student at the Rugby School where his father, Thomas Arnold, had earned national acclaim as a strict and innovative headmaster. Arnold also studied at Balliol College, Oxford University. In 1844, after complet...
Sep 26, 2024•7 min
James Arlington Wright was born on December 13, 1927, in Martins Ferry, Ohio. His father worked for fifty years at a glass factory, and his mother left school at fourteen to work in a laundry; neither attended school beyond the eighth grade. While in high school in 1943, Wright suffered a nervous breakdown and missed a year of school. When he graduated in 1946, a year late, he joined the U.S. Army and was stationed in Japan during the American occupation. He then attended Kenyon College on the G...
Sep 25, 2024•6 min
Today’s poem, from the delightfully clever Wendy Cope, epitomizes the rare and complicated light verse form: the double-dactyl. Wendy Cope was raised in Kent, England, where her parents often recited poetry to her. She earned a BA in history and trained as a teacher at Oxford University. Cope taught in primary schools for many years before publishing her first book of poetry, Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis (1986). The collection was an incredible success, selling tens of thousands of copies in t...
Sep 24, 2024•5 min
Today’s poem is for all those already wondering what they will do when the baseball season ends next month. 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
Sep 23, 2024•6 min
Richard Wilbur was born in New York City on March 1, 1921 and studied at Amherst College before serving in the U.S. Army during World War II. He later attended Harvard University. Wilbur’s first book of poems, The Beautiful Changes and Other Poems (Reynal & Hitchcock) was published in 1947. Since then, he has published several books of poems, including Anterooms: New Poems and Translations (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010); Collected Poems , 1943–2004 (Harvest Books, 2004); Mayflies: New Poe...
Sep 20, 2024•6 min
Cullen’s exact birthplace is unknown, but in 1918, at the age of 15, Countee LeRoy was adopted by Reverend Frederick A. Cullen, the minster to the largest church congregation in Harlem. Cullen kept his finger on the pulse of Harlem during the 1920s while he attended New York University and then a graduate program at Harvard. His poetry became popular during his student years, especially his prize-winning poem “The Ballad of a Brown Girl.” In 1925, he published his first volume of poetry entitled...
Sep 19, 2024•8 min
In today’s poem, the inimitably magnanimous Dr. Johnson eulogizes the man of “The single talent well employed.” Happy birthday to the good doctor, and happy reading to the rest. 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
Sep 18, 2024•6 min
Today’s poem is a passage of blank verse from Act 5, Scene 3 of Shakespeare’s King Lear. In the action of the play the scene is a prelude to tragedy, but as a picture of love between father and daughter it is almost perfect. 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...
Sep 17, 2024•8 min
Some Mondays call for a poem that is uncomplicated and perfectly delightful–and Milne never disappoints. 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
Sep 16, 2024•4 min
Joseph Rudyard Kipling (30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936) was an English journalist, novelist, poet, and short-story writer. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work. Kipling's works of fiction include the Jungle Book duology ( The Jungle Book , 1894; The Second Jungle Book , 1895), Kim (1901), the Just So Stories (1902) and many short stories, including "The Man Who Would Be King" (1888). His poems include "Mandalay" (1890), "Gunga Din" (1890), "The Gods of the Copybook H...
Sep 13, 2024•7 min
There comes a point in every life when “birthday” goes from meaning "pizza party” to meaning “ memento mori. ” Today’s poem goes out to everyone in the latter group. 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
Sep 12, 2024•6 min
Today the age-old question of loss and grief is answered…by the man who raised it in the first place. 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
Sep 11, 2024•6 min
Nelson is likely best known for her literary output as a poet. She regularly published in Opportunity and Crisis magazines between 1917 and 1928. Her poems also appeared in James Weldon Johnson’s seminal anthology, The Book of American Negro Poetry (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1931). Nelson began to keep a personal diary in 1921. Her entries from 1926 to 1931 were later edited by scholar Gloria T. Hull for a volume entitled Give Us Each Day: The Diary of Alice Dunbar-Nelson (W. W. Norton, 1984)...
Sep 10, 2024•10 min
The author of several collections of poetry–most recently Life on Earth –Dorianne Laux was the recipient of the Oregon Book Award and a finalist for the National Books Critics Circle Award for her book Facts About the Moon . She has also authored several works of non-fiction including The Poet’s Companion and Finger Exercises For Poets . She was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2020. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get acc...
Sep 09, 2024•8 min
Today’s poem–#6 in Donne’s La Corona sonnet cycle–is an ideal consummation for many of the themes introduced in this week’s selections. Now go read the rest of his holy 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
Sep 06, 2024•7 min
Today, Donne’s best-known poem, but maybe not his last word on 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
Sep 05, 2024•11 min
Today’s poem dramatizes Donne’s inner turmoil and conflicting desires, but is not without hope. 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
Sep 04, 2024•6 min
Today’s Holy Sonnet is the fourth in Donne’s underrated (if a poet as great as Donne can have underrated work) sonnet cycle, La Corona . The title translates to “crown” and the cycle’s opening line introduces the poems as a woven “crown of prayer and praise” offered to God, narrating and commenting upon significant events in the life of Jesus. Sonnet 4, “Temple,” centers on the sole recorded episode from Jesus’ youth. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers...
Sep 03, 2024•5 min
Today marks the beginning of a week of Donne’s “Holy Sonnets” (interpreted generously to also include selections from his sonnet cycle, “La Corona”). In this first sonnet, he establishes the themes––human weakness, self-doubt, terrestrial anguish, and divine transcendence and consolation––that will return throughout the series. 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...
Sep 02, 2024•7 min
Today, one of our favorite living poets asks questions about one of our favorite poems. 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
Aug 30, 2024•11 min
In today’s poem Thomas Merton, 20th-century author and mystic, comes to an understanding of his monastic vocation through a contemplation of John the Baptist’s prenatal gymnastics. 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
Aug 29, 2024•5 min
Ted Hughes, one of the giants of twentieth-century British poetry, was born in Mytholmroyd, Yorkshire. After serving in the Royal Air Force, Hughes attended Cambridge, where he studied archeology and anthropology and took a special interest in myths and legends. In 1956, he met and married the American poet Sylvia Plath, who encouraged him to submit his manuscript to a first-book contest run by the Poetry Center. Awarded first prize by judges Marianne Moore, W. H. Auden, and Stephen Spender, The...
Aug 28, 2024•7 min
Mark Strand was born on Canada’s Prince Edward Island on April 11, 1934. He received a BA from Antioch College in Ohio in 1957 and attended Yale University, where he was awarded the Cook Prize and the Bergin Prize. After receiving his BFA degree in 1959, Strand spent a year studying at the University of Florence on a Fulbright fellowship. In 1962 he received his MA from the University of Iowa. Strand was the author of numerous collections of poetry, including Collected Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, 20...
Aug 27, 2024•5 min
Today’s poem is a meta-reflection on the constraints of poetic form that has something to say about all of life’s formal constraints. 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
Aug 26, 2024•7 min
Today’s poem–perfect for a Friday–gives us a less familiar (PG-13) Emily Dickinson, dreaming of letting her hair down. 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
Aug 23, 2024•9 min
Today’s poem is a classic staple with Literature teachers for its expressive metaphors; it is a classic staple with me because it’s such a cracking-good 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
Aug 22, 2024•8 min
Today’s poem captures one of the universal challenges of education: recognizing the distinctions and distances between all human souls, and then bridging them without erasing them. 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
Aug 21, 2024•7 min
As the school year begins, today’s poem goes out to all of those everyday saints performing the unseen and unsung acts of love that make life possible for rest of us! Born Asa Bundy Sheffey on August 4, 1913, Robert Hayden was raised in the Detroit neighborhood Paradise Valley. He had an emotionally tumultuous childhood and lived, at times, with his parents and with a foster family. In 1932, he graduated from high school and, with the help of a scholarship, attended Detroit City College (later, ...
Aug 20, 2024•6 min
If a picture is worth 1,000 words, sometimes a portrait of your last wife who died under suspicious circumstances is as good as a confession. 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
Aug 20, 2024•6 min
Hopefully five days of limericks has made this week a little lighter and a little brighter. See you next week for more of our regularly programming. Till then, 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
Aug 20, 2024•2 min
