Poetry For All

This episode we continue examining how villanelles work and we walk through another example. Every form begs for a bending of the rules, sometims 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.

The poem cannot be reprinted here for copyright reasons. Thank you to Northwestern University Press for permission to read the poem today. 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, see Daedal.

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.

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.

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 unaccountable I became tired and sick,

Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45479/when-i-heard-the-learnd-astronomer

For a brief account of Whitman, see The Poetry Foundation.

For all things Whitman, see The Whitman Archive.

Image credit: "Walt Whitman by Mathew Brady, ca. 1865 - 1867." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 07 August 2026. http://www.whitmanarchive.org.

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.