Podcast · Arts & Books

Poetry For All

by Joanne Diaz and Abram Van Engen · English · Arts & Books

This podcast is for those who already love poetry and for those who know very little about it. In this podcast, we read a poem, discuss it, see what makes it tick, learn how it works, grow from it, and then read it one more time. Introducing our brand new Poetry For All website: https://poetryforall

New episodes: Every two weeks
Typical length: 26 min
Latest: 11 Oct 2026
Language: English

Latest episode

11 Oct 2026 · 27 min

Episode 116: Patricia Smith, "XXXL"

In this episode, we continue our series on the villanelle with Patricia Smith's "XXXL." In this poem, Smith uses the constraints of the villanelle form to create a powerful portrait of familial love. Patricia Smith is the author of numerous collections of poetry, a winner of the National Book Award for The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems (Scribner, 2025), and a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts.

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Earlier episodes 29 most recent

S9 · 24 Sep 2026 · 22 min
Episode 115: A.E. Stallings, Burned
In this episode, we continue our villanelle series with the incredible formalist poet A.E. Stallings. Every form begs for a bending of the rules, sometimes in small ways, sometimes in big ways. We look here at how slight bends in the rules bring home the poem. For more on A.E. Stallings, see her biography at The Poetry Foundation . Thank you to Northwestern University Press for permission to read the poem. This poem comes from A.E. Stallings' remarkable collection of poems titled Olives . We encourage you to check it out. For another great villanelle of Stallings that is available online,…
S9 · 10 Sep 2026 · 27 min
Episode 114: Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
In this episode, we introduce the first villanelle in our three-part series on that poetic form. We begin with Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night," a poem that attempts to stave off the inevitability of mortality. To learn more about Dylan Thomas, visit the Poetry Foundation .
S9 · 27 Aug 2026 · 25 min
Episode 113: Langston Hughes, Theme for English B
In this episode, we read one of Langston Hughes's most famous poems. We discuss Hughes's conversational style, how he evokes the topography of Harlem, and the way the poetic speaker addresses the complexity of the power dynamics in the classroom. You can read the text of this poem here . To learn more about Langston Hughes, visit the Poetry Foundation website . Thanks to Harold Ober Associates for granting us permission to read and discuss this poem.
S9 · 13 Aug 2026 · 23 min
Episode 112: Walt Whitman, When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer
As we prepare for the new school year, we turn to Walt Whitman's poem "When I Heard the Learned Astronomer." We discuss Whitman's influence, the effects of war, the role of poetry as Whitman saw it, and the importance of experiencing the world both in and beyond the classroom. When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer When I heard the learn’d astronomer, When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them, When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon…
S8 · 28 Jul 2026 · 27 min
Episode 111: Katie Ford, The Shroud of Turin
In this episode, Laura Evers (who has done so much work for this podcast), joins us to discuss the poem that drew her into poetry. We explore Katie Ford's haunting poem of longing, absence, and the desire to know, and we examine how her grammatical choices (including the absence of punctuation or breath marks) enhance the experience of reading and rereading the poem. "The Shroud of Turin" can be found in Katie Ford's first book of poems, Deposition . For more on Katie Ford, visit her website: https://www.fordkatie.com/ Thanks to Graywolf Press for permission to read the poem on this episode.
S8 · 5 Jun 2026 · 25 min
Episode 110: Tarfia Faizullah, Aubade Ending with the Death of a Mosquito
In this third installment of our series on the aubade, we feature a contrapuntal poem that explores various states of grief and loss. Tarfia Faizullah is the author of two poetry collections: Registers of Illuminated Villages (Graywolf, 2018) and Seam (Southern Illinois University Press, 2014). She is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships. To learn more about her work, visit her website . Thanks to SIU Press for granting us permission to read this poem on the podcast. _ To read this poem, click on this link .
S8 · 9 May 2026 · 25 min
Episode 109: Philip Larkin, Aubade
This episode continues our series on the aubade (a morning love song) with a dramatic turn. Larkin reinvents the tradition as waking to the fact that every new day brings a person one day closer to death. To see the tradition that Larkin reimagines, see our previous episode on John Donne, "The Sun Rising." For the text of Larkin's "Aubade" see the Poetry Foundation. For more on Larkin , see the Poetry Foundation. Thanks to Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, as well as Faber and Faber, for permission to read Larkin's "Aubade" for this episode. Photo by Barry Wilkinson/Radio Times via Getty Images
S8 · 15 Apr 2026 · 26 min
Episode 108: Joanne Diaz, The Face
In a special episode, we celebrate the release of Joanne Diaz's latest book, Electric Dress , by reading "The Face," a poem of double ekphrasis that reflects on the hope of tomorrow in the losses of today. To order the book Electric Dress , see Barrow Street Press here: https://barrowstreet.org/press/product/electric-dress-joanne-diaz/ For more on Joanne Diaz, see her faculty homepage: https://www.iwu.edu/english/faculty/diaz.html For more on the work of William Utermohlen, see this article and exhibition: https://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=utermohlen For…
S8 · 10 Apr 2026 · 26 min
Episode 107: John Donne, The Sun Rising
This episode begins a three-part series on the "aubade," a poem to greet the morning (often by wishing the morning away). We discuss Donne's many wonderful techniques and even recite a little Romeo and Juliet. Here is the poem: The Sun Rising By John Donne Busy old fool, unruly sun, Why dost thou thus, Through windows, and through curtains call on us? Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run? Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide Late school boys and sour prentices, Go tell court huntsmen that the king will ride, Call country ants to harvest offices, Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime, Nor…
S8 · 12 Mar 2026 · 21 min
Episode 106: Jane Mead, I wonder if I will miss the moss
This poem offers a humble love of the world and a leave-taking of it. It was found in the papers of Jane Mead (1958-2019), which were left to her great friend Kathleen Finneran (1957-2026), and it was published in the New Yorker in 2021 through Kathleen's efforts. The poem was read at the memorial for Mead in 2021 and then again at the funeral for Finneran in 2026. Here is the poem: I Wonder If I Will Miss the Moss —Jane Mead (1958-2019) I wonder if I will miss the moss after I fly off as much as I miss it now just thinking about leaving. There were stones of many colors. There were sticks…
S8 · 19 Feb 2026 · 26 min
Episode 105: Phillis Wheatley Peters, "To the Earl of Dartmouth"
Today, joined by Professor Kirsten Lee, we read a poem about freedom written on the eve of the American Revolution by Phillis Wheatley, the first African American to publish a book of poetry. In praise to the new British Secretary of State, she guides him how to rule while tying an American love of Freedom to her own personal experience of enslavement. To the Right Honorable William, Earl of Dartmouth By Phillis Wheatley Hail, happy day, when, smiling like the morn, Fair Freedom rose New-England to adorn: The northern clime beneath her genial ray, Dartmouth, congratulates thy blissful sway:…
S8 · 31 Jan 2026 · 24 min
Episode 104: Jane Zwart, I read that the moon is rusting
This episode brings together a collage of images to explore the meaning of time, the emergence of events from one to another, and the wonder of the unknown. For the full text of the poem, see here: https://mail.readwildness.com/25/zwart-rusting For more on the poet Jane Zwart, see her personal website: https://www.janezwart.com/ To see her new book and purchase a copy, see "Oddest & Oldest & Saddest & Best" at Orison Books: https://www.orisonbooks.com/product-page/oddest-oldest-saddest-best-poems-by-jane-zwart
S8 · 16 Jan 2026 · 15 min
Episode 103: Dinah Maria Craik, Friendship
In a short, simple, well-loved poem, Dinah Maria Craik names one aspect of friendship that many have found true. A great way to start the new year and launch the season. Find a friend and listen in. Friendship Oh, the comfort— the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person— having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.
S7 · 10 Dec 2025 · 28 min
Episode 102: Phillis Levin, An Anthology of Rain
In this episode, Phillis Levin reads "An Anthology of Rain," the title poem of her newest poetry collection. She guides us through the philosophical underpinnings of her poem, how it informs the book as a whole, and how the surfaces of things can tell us so much about their substance. Phillis Levin is the author of six poetry collections, including An Anthology of Rain . She is also the editor of The Penguin Book of the Sonnet: 500 Years of a Classic Tradition in English . Levin’s honors include a Fulbright Scholar Award to Slovenia, an Ingram Merrill Grant, the Richard Hugo Prize from…
S7 · 19 Nov 2025 · 24 min
Episode 101: Emerald GoingSnake, Someday I'll Love--
This episode opens "Someday I'll Love" poems through the vivid imagery of a young poet's connection with their grandmother, remembering in love as memory begins to slip. Emerald ᏃᏈᏏ GoingSnake is an Indigenous poet from the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians and the Muscogee (Creek) Nation in Oklahoma. Winner of the 2024 Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award for poetry and the recipient of the 2023 Indigenous Nations Poets fellowship, they live in St. Louis. Portrait by Erin Lewis Photography The poem was featured on Poem-a-Day and can be found at the Academy of American Poets. See here…
S7 · 29 Oct 2025 · 35 min
Episode 100: Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
This episode takes us to a graveyard for Halloween and explores one of the most canonical poems in the English language, poised between two huge eras of poetry as it meditates on how "the paths of glory lead but to the grave." The whole poem can be found below. The image is of Thomas Gray's monument in Stoke Poges, inscribed with his elegy. Photo by UKgeofan at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10552507 For more on Thomas Gray, see The Poetry Foundation . Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard By Thomas Gray The curfew tolls the knell of parting…
S7 · 15 Oct 2025 · 33 min
Episode 99: Oliver de la Paz, Pantoum Beginning and Ending with Thorns
In this third episode in our series on the pantoum, we read and discuss Oliver de la Paz's "Pantoum Beginning and Ending with Thorns," a poem that draws its inspiration from a visual art object as well as the story of migration that shapes the poetic speaker's lived experience. To learn more about Oliver de la Paz, visit his website . If you love this poem as much as we do, please purchase a copy of The Diaspora Sonnets (Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2023), which was long-listed for the 2023 National Book Award in Poetry and a finalist for the 2024 Paterson Poetry Prize. Thanks to…
S7 · 1 Oct 2025 · 29 min
Episode 98: Arthur Sze, Papyrus Pantoum
In this episode, we continue our three-part series on the pantoum, this time focusing on Arthur Sze's "Papyrus Pantoum." We consider the poem's collage-like qualities, Sze's ability to juxtapose abundance and scarcity, and the way he attends to both beauty and danger in the natural world. Arthur Sze is the 25th Poet Laureate of the United States. To learn more about Arthur Sze and his amazing work, click here . Thanks to Copper Canyon Press for granting us permission to read this poem. You can find "Papyrus Pantoum" in Into the Hush (Copper Canyon Press, 2025).
S7 · 17 Sep 2025 · 27 min
Episode 97: Donald Justice, Pantoum of the Great Depression
This episode begins a three-part series on the pantoum and looks at how the repetitions work especially well for a poem that dwells incessantly in memories of the past, trying to recover, trying to move forward. For the text of the poem, see The Poetry Foundation: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/58080/pantoum-of-the-great-depression For more on Donald Justice, see The Poetry Foundation: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/donald-justice Copyright Credit: Donald Justice, "Pantoum of the Great Depression" from Collected Poems. Copyright © 2004 by Donald Justice. Read on our podcast…
S7 · 3 Sep 2025 · 24 min
Episode 96: Gerard Manley Hopkins, God's Grandeur
Today we look at a sonnet by Gerard Manley Hopkins that dwells equally in the grandeur of God and the wreck made of earth. Hopkins wonders how these two aspects of our world could possibly relate, and he holds out hope for the dearest freshness deep down things. God's Grandeur By Gerard Manley Hopkins The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;…
S7 · 20 Aug 2025 · 23 min
Episode 95: Ted Kooser, Student
It's back to school time, and we're back at Poetry For All, heavy with hope for another season. Today we look at a poem unified by an extended metaphor describing a student who makes his heroic way to the library. Short and simple--and so much to love. This poem comes from Ted Kooser's Pulitzer-Prize winning book, Delights and Shadows , published by Copper Canyon Press in 2004. Thank you to Copper Canyon Press for permission to read the poem for this episode. For the text of the poem, see here: https://www.versedaily.org/student.shtml For Ted Kooser's personal webpage, see here:…
S6 · 19 Jun 2025 · 25 min
Episode 94: Sumer is icumen in
In this episode, we offer a close reading of "Sumer is icumen in," a Middle English song that anticipates the abundant joys of summer. Thanks to the Pias Group for granting us permission to share the Hilliard Ensemble's rendition of this song. You can find the manuscript that includes the lyrics and music at the British Library .
S6 · 8 May 2025 · 26 min
Episode 92: Dorianne Laux, Singer
In this episode, we read and discuss "Singer," a narrative poem that celebrates the poetic speaker's mother in all of her complexity. Dorianne Laux is the author of numerous books of poetry, including Life on Earth , which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and Only As the Day is Long: New and Selected Poems which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She is also the author of a new craft book titled Finger Exercises for Poets . “Singer” appears in LIFE ON EARTH by Dorianne Laux. Copyright © 2024 by Dorianne Laux. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
S6 · 24 Apr 2025 · 25 min
Episode 91: Joanne Diaz, Two Emergencies
In this episode, Katy Didden and Abram Van Engen discuss the extraordinary leaps, narrative disjunctions, and temporal frames that fill Diaz's extraordinary ekphrastic poem, a reflection on Bruegel's painting, "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" written in conversation with W.H. Auden's poem "Musée des Beaux Arts." "Two Emergencies," appears in My Favorite Tyrants (University of Wisconsin Press 2014), winner of the 2014 Brittingham Prize in Poetry. For more poetry of Joanne Diaz, see also The Lessons (Silverfish Review Press 2011), winner of the Gerald Cable Book Award. For W.H. Auden's "…
S6 · 16 Apr 2025 · 20 min
Episode 90: N. Scott Momaday, The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee
This episode explores the incantation and mystic union of Momaday's famous delight poem, ending with a recorded recitation in his own rich voice. We explain anaphora and explore its power, and we trace the links and connections from one thought to the next throughout the poem. Special thanks to Universty of California Television (UCTV) for permission to share the audio of Momaday's reading. For the interview with Momaday from which this reading has been pulled, see " A Conversation with N. Scott Momaday -- Writer's Symposium by the Sea 2023 " on Youtube. "The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee"…
S6 · 3 Apr 2025 · 55 min
Episode 89: Pádraig Ó Tuama, excerpts from Kitchen Hymns
This episode was recorded on March 2, 2025 at the Phillis Wheatley Heritage Center in St. Louis., Missouri. In this conversation, Pádraig Ó Tuama reads several poems from Kitchen Hymns (Copper Canyon Press, 2024), his newest collection. We discuss subversive speech, belief and doubt, lyrical poetry, the psychology of poetic forms, and the power of ancient myths. Pádraig Ó Tuama is a poet with interests in conflict, language and religion. He presents Poetry Unbound from On Being Studios, and has published two anthologies (2022, 2025, both with WW Norton) from that podcast. A freelance artist,…
S6 · 20 Mar 2025 · 29 min
Episode 88: Oksana Maksymchuk, Tempo
Oksana Maksymchuk joins us for a reading and discussion of "Tempo," a poem that explores the how war causes us to "whirl with / planets and stars that coil / around our fragile core." Oksana Maksymchuk is a bilingual Ukrainian-American poet, scholar, and literary translator. Her debut English-language poetry collection Still City is the 2024 Pitt Poetry Series selection, published by University of Pittsburgh Press (US) and Carcanet Press (UK). And while Still City is Oksana’s first poem in English, she is an accomplished poet in the Ukrainian as well. She is also the co-editor of Words for…
S6 · 6 Mar 2025 · 35 min
Episode 87: Monica Ong, Her Gaze
In this episode, Monica Ong joins us to discuss "Her Gaze," a visual poem that celebrates the achievements of astronomer Caroline Herschel. "Her Gaze" appears in Planetaria , Ong's new collection that merges archival materials with striking lyric poems. Monica Ong is the author of two books: Silent Anatomies , which was the winner of the Kore Press First Book Award in 2015; and Planetaria , which will be released in May 2025. Last year, Ong was named a United States Artists Fellow. Ong’s visual poetry has been published in many literary magazines and exhibited in galleries and museums all…
S6 · 20 Feb 2025 · 25 min
Episode 86: Gwendolyn Bennett, I Build America
Gwendolyn Bennett was a poet, journalist, editor, and activist whose contributions helped to fuel the Harlem Renaissance. In this episode, we read "I Build America," a poem that exposes and critiques the exploitation and suffering of ordinary workers. To learn more about Gwendolyn Bennett, see Heroine of the Harlem Renaissance and Beyond: Gwendolyn Bennett's Selected Writings , edited by Belinda Wheeler and Louis J. Parascandola (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2018). Thanks to Pennsylvania State University Press for granting us permission to read this poem. You can also click here to…

About Poetry For All

Poetry For All is a English arts & books podcast from Joanne Diaz and Abram Van Engen. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.

Publisher: Joanne Diaz and Abram Van Engen
Language: English
Category: Arts & Books
New episodes: Every two weeks
Typical length: 26 min
Latest episode: 11 Oct 2026
Feed: RSS — paste into any podcast app
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1529911882

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