Poetry For All

Joanne Diaz and Abram Van Engen
  • 4.9 (191)
  • Arts
  • Updated Semimonthly

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://poetryforallpod.com! Please visit the new website to learn more about our guests, search for thematic episodes (ranging from Black History Month to the season of autumn), and subscribe to our newsletter.

  1. Aug 27

    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.

    Episode 113: Langston Hughes, Theme for English B

  2. Aug 13

    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 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.

    Episode 112: Walt Whitman, When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer

  3. Jul 28

    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.

    Episode 111: Katie Ford, The Shroud of Turin

  4. Jun 5

    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.

    Episode 110: Tarfia Faizullah, Aubade Ending with the Death of a Mosquito

  5. May 9

    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

    Episode 109: Philip Larkin, Aubade

  6. Apr 15

    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 the work of Catherine Drabkin, see her website: https://catherinedrabkin.com/

    Episode 108: Joanne Diaz, The Face

  7. Apr 10

    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 hours, days, months, which are the rags of time. Thy beams, so reverend and strong Why shouldst thou think? I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink, But that I would not lose her sight so long; If her eyes have not blinded thine, Look, and tomorrow late, tell me, Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with me. Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday, And thou shalt hear, All here in one bed lay. She's all states, and all princes, I, Nothing else is. Princes do but play us; compared to this, All honor's mimic, all wealth alchemy. Thou, sun, art half as happy as we, In that the world's contracted thus. Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be To warm the world, that's done in warming us. Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere; This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44129/the-sun-rising For more on Donne: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/john-donne

    Episode 107: John Donne, The Sun Rising

  8. Mar 12

    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 holding both lichen and moss. There were red gates with old hand-forged hardware. There were fields of dry grass smelling of first rain then of new mud. There was mud, and there was the walking, all the beautiful walking, and it alone filled me— the smells, the scratchy grass heads. All the sleeping under bushes, once waking to vultures above, peering down with their bent heads the way they do, caricatures of interest and curiosity. Once too a lizard. Once too a kangaroo rat. Once too a rat. They did not say I belonged to them, but I did. Whenever the experiment on and of my life begins to draw to a close I’ll go back to the place that held me and be held. It’s O.K. I think I did what I could. I think I sang some, I think I held my hand out. For The New Yorker, see here. For a reflection on the poem by the poet Devin Kelly, see Kelly's Substack Ordinary Plots. For more on Jane Mead, see The Poetry Foundation. For the memorial service and the tribute by Kathleen Finneran, see Mead's personal webpage.

    Episode 106: Jane Mead, I wonder if I will miss the moss
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About

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://poetryforallpod.com! Please visit the new website to learn more about our guests, search for thematic episodes (ranging from Black History Month to the season of autumn), and subscribe to our newsletter.

Information

  • Creator
    Joanne Diaz and Abram Van Engen
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2026
  • Episodes
    116
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Poetry For All
  • Show Website
    Poetry For All

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