Fri, Apr 3, 2020
Marilyn Chin's "Urban Love Poem" is a love poem with depth and edge-but who, or what, is the object of the poem's affection? Joined by Chin herself, in this episode we consider how the poet interweaves her own coming of age with that of a beloved city, San Francisco, as she explores the city's history from the Gold Rush and early Chinese immigration to the rise of Silicon Valley. Adding their voices to the mix are acclaimed memoirist Maxine Hong Kingston, tech investor Randy Komisar, and four Bay Area residents who spoke with us on a rooftop in Chinatown.
Fri, Apr 10, 2020
"The art of losing isn't hard to master," Elizabeth Bishop wrote in this poem, universally considered one of her greatest. This memorable line seems at once familiar, capturing universal experience, and peculiar, leading readers to wonder just what makes losing an "art"? Join host Elisa New, journalist Katie Couric, media executives Sheryl Sandberg and Yang Lan, singer/songwriter Mary Chapin Carpenter, poet Gregory Orr, and psychiatrist Richard Summers as they discuss Bishop's masterpiece on losses great and small.
Fri, Apr 24, 2020
Host Elisa New talks with poet Mark Doty, psychologist Steven Pinker, choreographer Bill T. Jones, writer and fashion commentator Simon Doonan, and designer Jonathan Adler about this poem in which a visit to the barber shop sparks a meditation on love, the AIDS crisis, masculinity, home, and getting older.
Fri, May 1, 2020
Stephen Sondheim is widely hailed as the greatest modern American musical theater composer. In this episode, Broadway stage actors Raúl Esparza, Melissa Errico, Donna Lynne Champlin, Kerry O'Malley, Andrew Arrow, and writer Adam Gopnik give voice-in speech and song-to Sondheim's singular ability to blend lyrics and music, using as their case study this song from his Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Sunday in the Park with George.
Fri, May 8, 2020
Poet Yusef Komunyakaa went to the Vietnam War as a journalist but came home a poet. This episode explores how things experienced during war can still burn in memory and on the page decades later. Former Secretary of State John Kerry, film and theatre director Julie Taymor, composer Elliot Goldenthal, a chorus of Vietnam War veterans, and Komunyakaa himself discuss the awful mix of beauty and horror in war-and the challenge of making art from it.
Fri, May 15, 2020
Written in the form of an apology note stuck to a refrigerator door, "This is Just to Say" is a plum of a poem-one that has caused as much disagreement among readers as between any ordinary husband and wife. Is the poem merely the apology it claims to be? Is it an apology at all? Join actor John Hodgman, poet and physician Rafael Campo, poet Jane Hirshfield, and a chorus of couples as they consider what may or may not lie beneath the surface of William Carlos Williams's brief tribute to marital relations-and the savor of plums.
Fri, May 22, 2020
In 1855 Walt Whitman declared "The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem." Poetry In America celebrates the 200th anniversary of Walt Whitman's birth with Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, playwright Tony Kushner, hip hop artist Nas, composer Matthew Aucoin, baritone Davóne Tines, poets Joshua Bennett, Marilyn Chin, Christina Davis, Mark Doty, Linda Hogan, and Adrienne Raphel, a chorus of National Student Poets, and others discussing Whitman's powerful and timeless work.