Poems for Company

“What’s So Funny?”: Will any of today’s poems make you laugh?  Billy Collins, “To My Favorite 17-Year-Old High School Girl,” from Aimless Love: New and Selected Poems (Random House, 2013).  Stephen Dunn, “John & Mary,” from The Not Yet Fallen World: New and Selected Poems (W.W. Norton & Company, 2022).  Caroline Bird, “Little Children,” from The Air Year (Carcanet, 2020), https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781784109028/the-air-year/   Would you like to share with me...

“Wake Up: Modern Aubades”: Traditionally, aubades are lyrics announcing the arrival of dawn all too soon for lovers who want the night to be prolonged.  The twentieth-century poems featured here take some liberties with that tradition.  After an excerpt from John Donne’s “The Sun Rising” (1633), Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill, “Aubade,” from Pharaoh’s Daughter (Wake Forest U. Press,...

“Neighbors”: When you recall the places where you lived, do you inevitably reflect on who else was in close proximity?  This episode presents three distinct ways of thinking about one’s neighbors.  Robert Frost, “Mending Wall.”  John Heywood, “A Quiet Neighbour.”  Robert Wrigley, “Praise Bob,” from The True Account of Myself as a Bird (Penguin Books, 2022),...

“Revised Bible Stories”: Poets give voice to characters who are silent in the Bible, and they speculate on what the Bible left out.  They allow us to imagine less conventional roles for certain characters, as these three poems suggest.  Molly Twomey, “Noah’s Wife,” from Raised Among Vultures, and used by kind permission of the author and...

“Parents Viewed Unconventionally”: Three contemporary female poets comment on one or more parents in somewhat unexpected ways.  Molly Twomey, “The Drop Off,” from Raised Among Vultures, and used by kind permission of the author and The Gallery Press, 2022 (www.gallerypress.com).  Kathleen Flenniken, “Married Love,” from Post Romantic, used by kind permission of the author (U. of Washington Press, 2020). ...

“Friendship”: Three poems consider the shared activities, the camaraderie, the tensions, and the goofiness of friendships.  Ada Limon, “Blowing on the Wheel,” from The Hurting Kind (Milkweed, 2022).  Delmore Schwartz, “Do the Others Speak of Me Mockingly, Maliciously?” from Selected Poems, copyright 1959 by Delmore Schwartz.  Used by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.  Sharon Olds, “Best Friends,”...

“Narrative Poems”: These poems offer at least an outline of a story, with a plot and some time references.  Like many successful stories, substantial relevant questions may remain unanswered, requiring some speculation on our part.  John Greenleaf Whittier, “Telling the Bees.”  Edwin Arlington Robinson, “Mr. Flood’s Party.”  Our theme music is Philip Aaberg’s “Going-to-the-Sun” from Live from...

“Remembering the First World War”: Our first poem details the life of a veteran who managed to survive the carnage and reflects on–or tries not to reflect on–his specific experiences during the war.  The next two poems depict civilians beginning to come to terms with their memories of the suffering shared throughout England.  Edmund Blunden,...

“Unrequited Love (Part Two)”: A previous episode in March ’23 dealt with this same theme and featured poems by both men and women.  This episode considers unrequited love primarily from the woman’s point of view.  Guys in my audience may need to listen in.  Ellen Bass, “Can’t Get Over Her,” from Mules of Love (BOA Editions, 2002).  Sappho,...

“Wandering and Roving”: When you wander in the woods, how do you decide which way to go when you arrive at a fork in your path?  The first of today’s poems offers a playful response to that question, and the other poems also reflect in various ways on the act of wandering.  Robert Frost, “The...

“Exile and Return”: What is it like to try to enter and exit Middle Eastern countries, especially Palestine?  Today’s poems offer glimpses, even before the most recent spasm of violence that ripped it apart in October 2023.  Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, “Upon Arrival” and “Immigrant,” from Water and Salt (Red Hen Press, 2017).  Mosab Abu Toha, “Things You...

“One Word”: The poems on today’s show implicitly urge us to consider how strange language is when we examine it up close.  Each of today’s poems puzzle over an individual word.  Billy Collins, “Tension,” from Aimless Love: New and Selected Poems (Random House, 2013).  Shakespeare, “Sonnet 135.”  Robert Wrigley, “Lovely,” from The True Account of Myself as a...

“Three Controversial Musicians”: Today’s three poems spotlight three individuals known for their musical talents, as well as the controversy they provoked.  Naomi Shihab Nye, “Cross That Line,” from You and Yours (BOA Editions, 2011), used by kind permission of the author.  Frank O’Hara, “The Day Lady Died,” from Lunch Poems (City Lights Books, 1964).  William Matthews, “Mingus at the...

“Gifts”: One poet recalls her complex strategies as a teen gift-giver, a second recalls the gift his parents bestowed on him when he was eleven and about to move away from home, and the third imagines the circumstances in which her father gave a gift to her mother before they were married, before they became her...

“A Redwood, an Ancient Orchard, a Sequoia”: Do you have a favorite tree you pay special attention to when you take a routine walk?  Is it older than you?  We project so many attributes on to trees, including longevity and strength.  We develop an emotional attachment to trees.  Today’s episode considers such attachments and features two...

“Running on Empathy”: Three authors display various degrees of empathy in their depictions of Abraham Lincoln.  Walt Whitman, prose passages from Specimen Days, and “O Captain! My Captain.”  Kathleen Flenniken, “To Ease My Mind,” from Famous (U. of Nebraska Press, 2006), and used with kind permission of the author.  Leigh Stein, “Lincoln, Abraham, Melancholy Of,” from What To Miss When (New...

“Mysterious Encounters”: Three sing-songy poems are featured on today’s episode.  All three depict encounters between two individuals: all three resist our efforts to make total sense of their motives and actions.  We may think we know what happens between the couples, but the poems seem to run ahead of our ability to catch up to them...

“Children Thinking”: This episode features the voices of children–filtered through adult poets–in three poems that express a variety of insights.  These poems may prompt you to wonder, did you once think like these three children?  The poems are read in this order: William Wordsworth, “We Are Seven” (originally published in 1798).  Elizabeth Bishop, “In the Waiting Room,” from The...

“Desk Jobs”: Did you ever have a job you abruptly quit soon after it began?  Why did you do that?  The first three lines of our first poem refer to a job the speaker quit after just one shift.  The next two poems feature office interactions between the speaker and a work colleague and boss. ...

“Manual Labor”: What do you remember from your first paid job? Did you develop any work-habits that you carried into adulthood? From your twenties on, has much of your identity been shaped by your work? Poems on this and next month’s episodes offer a variety of perspectives on work. Three poems are featured: Jericho Brown’s...

“Swimming”: We dive in with two action-packed excerpts from ancient poetic narratives. Both depict heroic swimmers moving through dangerous waters. This episode concludes with a contemporary American poet’s solitary naked swim in a pond in the early morning mist. Homer, The Odyssey (trans. Robert Fitzgerald), from Book V, lines 403-408, 415-437, 441-486. Beowulf (trans. Seamus Heaney), lines 506-510, 515-518, 532-581...

“Meta-Verse”: The four poems on this episode make a virtue out of being self-conscious.  Each poem comments on the very poem we’re reading.  The poem pulls back the curtain and reveals the composing process.  Or at least that’s what the poem pretends to do.  Billy Collins, “The Suggestion Box,” from Aimless Love: New and Selected Poems (Random...

“Where Is My Home?” (Part 2): The four poems on this episode address this question from a variety of perspectives: home as an imaginary place; home valued for the quality of one’s neighbors; home as a portable existence, a van; and home as the indoor / outdoor zone where multiple generations in a family live...

“Where Is My Home?”: Do you carry in your mind images of a former landscape you lived in, an extended area you called home?  The first poem is spoken in the voice of Robinson Crusoe as a old man back in England, wondering if this island of his origin, the place where his life will...

“Frederick and Anna Murray Douglass”: Though Frederick Douglass grew up not knowing his exact birthdate and even uncertain just how old he was, historians presume he was born in February 1818.  Douglass wrote, “I do not remember to have ever met a slave who could tell of his birthday.”  His master “deemed all such inquiries...

“Imagining Our Parents Before We Were Born”: What do you know about the life of either of your parents before you were born?  The three contemporary poems featured on this episode suggest the poets knew just a few facts, perhaps derived from family lore.  Then they speculated or fabricated the rest to achieve some coherent...

“Some Horses, Some Oxen”: Four poems are featured on this show, three about horses and one about oxen.  All of the horse poems tell us as much about the speaker as they do about the horses, and the final poem details a most curious Christmas folk belief.  What are all these animals thinking?  The poems...

“Responding to Loss”: All three poems in this episode reflect on the loss of a person, when loss is final.  Perhaps one or more of these poems speak to feelings you have experienced but could not define quite like these poets do.  Are poems and songs useful for facing one’s own demise or for dealing...

“Civilians in the First World War”: All four poems on today’s episode focus on civilians in the First World War, particularly women: how were they affected?  Jessie Pope, “War Girls.”  Siegfried Sassoon, “Glory of Women.”  May Wedderburn Cannan, “Rouen.”  E. E. Cummings, “my sweet old etcetera.”  There are many fine anthologies that present poetry from...

“Advice”: Have you ever urged anyone to procreate?  If so, what motivated you to do that?  Today’s episode presents poems that offer direct advice, not only about when to have children and why, but also about what to eat, how to interact with others, and additional concerns.  Shakespeare, Sonnet # 3.  Catherine Tufariello, “Useful Advice,” from Keeping My...

Ancient Chinese Poetry: This show features the work of two poets.  Do they express concerns many of us think about in the 21st century?  Do they suggest how to adjust certain of our attitudes?  All the poems are from A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems, translated by Arthur Waley (Knopf, 1919).  (Many poems by these same authors...

“Inanimate Objects”: Have you inherited an inanimate object that carries emotional weight?  Have you bestowed a name on your bicycle or your car?  The poems featured in this episode respond in a variety of ways to inanimate objects.  Leigh Stein, “What Happens If You Click It,” from What To Miss When (NY: Soft Skull Press, 2021).  Richard...

“Lust or Love”: In your own life, have you always been able to distinguish which powerful emotional response to another person grips you?  In the four poems featured on this episode, can you determine whether it’s lust or love that directs the poem’s speaker?  Ellen Bass, “Gate C22,” from The Human Line (Copper Canyon Press, 2007).  Frank...

“Posing Questions”: “Who hangs a birdhouse from a sapling?”  How would you answer that question?  One poem featured on today’s episode places that question in a startling context.  Questions shape all of the poems on today’s episode.  Some are addressed; others are left for us to sort out.  Today’s episode features these poems: Christina Rossetti,...

“Poems About Writing”: When you were a student, did you find joy in the writing tasks required of you?  Did self-disclosure make you uncomfortable, or did you welcome the opportunity to express your individuality?  Poems in this episode may take you back to the classroom, with reflections from some students and instructors.  Today’s show features these poems:...

“Unrequited Love,” Part One: Poets respond in a variety of ways when their strong desires for another are not returned: from anger to bewilderment to resignation.  Over time, a number of episodes of Poems for Company will focus on this theme.  Today’s show features these poems: Sappho, Poem # 94, translator Michael R. Burch (thehypertexts.com/Sappho Longer Poems in Translations by Michael R. Burch.htm), read with...

“Unlived Lives”: What prompted you to make personal life-altering choices?  Do you believe a sky-god or some other cosmic force oversees your personal choices?  Has your life unfolded due to random events?  The three contemporary poems in this episode reflect on our personal choices that at times lead us to fantasize about how it all could...

“Dogs in Homer, Homer’s Dog, Other Dogs.”  What truths about dogs did Homer know nearly 3000 years ago?  If Homer lived with a dog, what did this dog think of the epic poet?  The poems in this episode address these and other canine-related questions in intriguing ways.  Homer, snippets from The Iliad, Books 22 and 23; a passage...

What do you think of the remarks by the old people you know?  Do they offer wisdom?  Do they complain?  Are they forward-looking?  Are they funny?  The seven poems featured on this episode offer a variety of responses.  William Matthews, “Grandmother Talking,” from Search Party: Collected Poems, ed. by Sebastian Matthews and Stanley Plumly, Houghton Mifflin...

How do we respond to the birds in our community?  What do they tell us about ourselves?    This show features eight poems: Emily Dickinson, “A Bird Came Down the Walk”; Isaac Rosenberg, “Returning, We Hear the Larks”; Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, from the opening of 3.5; W. B. Yeats, “The Wild Swans at Coole”; Greg Delanty, “On...

Do we imagine the dead as content in their zone, or do they express anxieties about how the world of the living functions in their absence?  Poems in this episode offer contrasting answers: Frederic Weatherly’s “Danny Boy”; A.E. Housman’s “Is My Team Ploughing?”; Thomas Hardy’s “Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave?”; John McCrae’s “In...