Poetry For All

Joanne Diaz and Abram Van Engen

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.

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20 episodes
Updated Tuesday

Episodes20

Newest first

Tuesday · 26 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.
June 5 · 24 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.
May 9 · 24 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.
April 15 · 25 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.
April 10 · 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.
March 12 · 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.
February 19 · 25 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.
January 31 · 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.
January 16 · 14 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.
Dec 10, 2025 · 27 min
Episode 102: Phillis Levin, An Anthology of Rain
In this episode, Phillis Levin reads "An Anthology of Rain," the title poem of her new book of poetry. 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.
Nov 19, 2025 · 23 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.
Oct 29, 2025 · 34 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."
Oct 15, 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.
Oct 1, 2025 · 28 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.
Sep 17, 2025 · 26 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.
Sep 3, 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.
Aug 20, 2025 · 22 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.
Jun 19, 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.
May 8, 2025 · 25 min
Episode 92: Dorianne Laux, Singer
In this episode, we read and discuss "Singer," a narrative poem that creates a catalog of details that celebrates the poetic speaker's mother in all of her complexity.
Apr 24, 2025 · 24 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."

Poetry For All

Episode 111: Katie Ford, The Shroud of Turin

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

Episode 109: Philip Larkin, Aubade

Episode 108: Joanne Diaz, The Face

Episode 107: John Donne, The Sun Rising

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

Episode 105: Phillis Wheatley Peters, "To the Earl of Dartmouth"

Episode 104: Jane Zwart, I read that the moon is rusting

Episode 103: Dinah Maria Craik, Friendship

Episode 102: Phillis Levin, An Anthology of Rain

Episode 101: Emerald GoingSnake, Someday I'll Love--

Episode 100: Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

Episode 99: Oliver de la Paz, Pantoum Beginning and Ending with Thorns

Episode 98: Arthur Sze, Papyrus Pantoum

Episode 97: Donald Justice, Pantoum of the Great Depression

Episode 96: Gerard Manley Hopkins, God's Grandeur

Episode 95: Ted Kooser, Student

Episode 94: Sumer is icumen in

Episode 92: Dorianne Laux, Singer

Episode 91: Joanne Diaz, Two Emergencies