Poems for the Speed of Life
Poems for the Speed of Life is a podcast that brings the power of poetry to your day. Each episode includes a reading of a poem, along with thoughts and ideas, and an invitation to allow it to speak to you. The podcast explores poetry as a vital exploration of the world and ourselves.
Episodes
S5, E6: "All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace" by Richard Brautigan
Richard Brautigan was born in Tacoma, Washington in 1935 and died in 1984. He had an unhappy childhood marked by poverty, and in his teens was committed to Oregon State Hospital where he received electroshock therapy. Moving to San Francisco, he published the novel Trout Fishing in America in 1967 which established him as a literary force.That same year, while poet-in-residence at the California I
S5, E5: "Blessings" by Francis Harvey
This is the fifth episode of the Nature, Wilderness and Wildness series of the podcast.Francis Harvey was born in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, in 1925 and died in 2014 at the age of 89.Though born in Northern Ireland, he lived most of his life in County Donegal in the Republic, and was a member of Aosdána, the Irish association that honours artists who have produced distinguished work of genuine
S5, E4: "breaklight" by Lucille Clifton
This is the fourth episode of the Nature, Wilderness and Wildness series of the podcast.Lucille Clifton was born in 1936 in Depew, New York, and died in 2010. She served as Poet Laureate of Maryland from 1979 to 1985, was twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and won the National Book Award for Blessing the Boats in 2000.Clifton’s style was a minimalist one — without standard capitalization or p
S5, E3: "Instructions on Not Giving Up" by Ada Limón
This is the third episode of the Nature, Wilderness and Wildness series of the podcast.Ada Limón was born in California in 1976 and was the U.S. Poet Laureate from 2022 until 2025. She is one of the most notable and noteworthy voices in contemporary American poetry. Some of the themes of her work include love, loss, the body, and the natural world. Limon has published eight collections, including
S5, E2: "Death of a Naturalist" by Seamus Heaney
This is the second episode of the Nature, Wilderness and Wildness series of the podcast.Seamus Heaney, who died in 2013, was one of Ireland's most celebrated and most loved poets, and the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996.He grew up on a farm in County Derry, Northern Ireland, and the landscape of his childhood—its bogs, fields, and rural rhythms—saturated his work throughout hi
S5, E1: "The Peace of Wild Things" by Wendell Berry
This is the first episode of the Nature, Wilderness and Wildness series of the podcast.Wendell Berry is an American poet, farmer, and environmental activist who has spent most of his life on a small farm in Kentucky. Born in 1934, Berry has been writing for over six decades, exploring themes of agrarian life, community, and our relationship with the land. He's both a working farmer and a think
Series 5 Trailer: Nature, Wilderness, Wildness
Announcing a new series of Poems for the Speed of Life with Shane Breslin. This series of the podcast is overdue, and it's great to be back. This series is all about the world around us. Nature. Wilderness. Wildness. The other living things that share our space and our place on this earth. Included in this series of Poems for the Speed of Life will be poems from Sharon Olds, Mary Oliver, Seamu
S4, E10: "A Child's Christmas in Wales" by Dylan Thomas.
Welcome to another episode of Poems for the Speed of Life with Shane Breslin.
This is Episode 10 of the Christmas series and today's piece is "A Child's Christmas in Wales" by Dylan Thomas.
You can read the piece here
You can get notified about new episodes, receive more detailed episode descriptions, and if you are so moved, support the podcast financially, by joining on
S4, E9: "Silent Night (Christmas 1915)" by Cormac MacConnell
Welcome to another episode of Poems for the Speed of Life with Shane Breslin, writer, business owner and advocate of poetry and the written word to be our mentor and guide through the world and through our lives.
This is Episode 9 of the Christmas series and today's piece is the lyric of the song "Silent Night (Christmas 1915)" by Cormac MacConnell.
You can read the piece here
Watc
S4, E8: "A Jewish Mom's Christmas Poem" by Amy Sue Nathan
Welcome to another episode of Poems for the Speed of Life with Shane Breslin, writer, business owner and advocate of poetry and the written word to be our mentor and guide through the world and through our lives.
This is Episode 8 of the Christmas series and today's poem is "A Jewish Mom's Christmas Poem" by Amy Sue Nathan.
You can read the poem here
You can get notified about new ep
S4, E7: "My hero the whirligig" by Bob Hicok
Welcome to another episode of Poems for the Speed of Life with Shane Breslin, writer, business owner and advocate of poetry and the written word to be our mentor and guide through the world and through our lives.
This is Episode 7 of the Christmas series and today's poem is "My hero the whirligig" by Bob Hicok.
You can read the poem here
You can get notified about new episodes, receive
S4, E6: "Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus", by Francis P. Church
Welcome to another episode of Poems for the Speed of Life with Shane Breslin, writer, business owner and advocate of poetry and the written word to be our mentor and guide through the world and through our lives.
This is Episode 6 of the Christmas series and today's piece of writing is "Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus", by Francis P. Church.
You can read the poem here
You can get n
S4, E5: "A Christmas Childhood" by Patrick Kavanagh
Welcome to another episode of Poems for the Speed of Life with Shane Breslin, writer, business owner and advocate of poetry and the written word to be our mentor and guide through the world and through our lives.
This is Episode 5 of the Christmas series and today's poem is "A Christmas Childhood" by Patrick Kavanagh.
You can read the poem here
You can get notified about new episodes, rece
S4, E4: "Christmas" by John Betjeman
Welcome to another episode of Poems for the Speed of Life with Shane Breslin, writer, business owner and advocate of poetry and the written word to be our mentor and guide through the world and through our lives.
This is Episode 4 of the Christmas series and today's poem is "Christmas" by John Betjeman.
You can read the poem here
You can get notified about new episodes, receive more detailed
S4, E3: "The Christmas Letter" by John N. Morris
Welcome to another episode of Poems for the Speed of Life with Shane Breslin, writer, business owner and advocate of poetry and the written word to be our mentor and guide through the world and through our lives.
This is Episode 3 of the Christmas series and today's poem is "The Christmas Letter" by John N. Morris.
You can read the poem here
You can get notified about new episodes, receive mor
S4, E2: "Advent" by Mary Jo Salter
Welcome to another episode of Poems for the Speed of Life with Shane Breslin, writer, business owner and advocate of poetry and the written word to be our mentor and guide through the world and through our lives.
This is Episode 2 of the Christmas series and today's poem is "Advent" by Mary Jo Salter.
You can read the poem here
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Listen back to the introductory episode of the Christmas series
S4, E1: "Christmas Trees" by Robert Frost
Welcome to another episode of Poems for the Speed of Life with Shane Breslin, writer, business owner and advocate of poetry and the written word to be our mentor and guide through the world and through our lives.
This is Episode 1 of the Christmas series: "Christmas Trees" by Robert Frost.
You can read the poem here
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Listen back to the introductory episode of the Christmas series on Spotify h
Series 4 Trailer: Christmas
Introducing a new series of Poems for the Speed of Life, with your host, Shane Breslin.
This podcast is about the transformative power of poetry, literature and the written word in general, to help us, to teach us, to guide us on the road through the life we’d like to lead.
The theme for the new series is Christmas.
You can look forward to poems from all over the world, plus a song lyric or two, a
S3, E12: Two poems, by Edgar Albert Guest and Rupi Kaur
Welcome to another episode of Poems for the Speed of Life with Shane Breslin, writer, business owner, poetry advocate and poet.
To finish this series on fathers and fatherhood, I decided to offer a sort of couplet. Two poems, written maybe a century apart, one by a man who was read by millions when he lived and is now long since dead, the other by a young woman who immigrated to Canada from India
S3, E11: "The Time" by Shane Breslin
Welcome to another series of Poems for the Speed of Life with Shane Breslin, writer, business owner, poetry advocate and poet.
This is the fourth episode of this series of the show on the theme of "Fatherhood”.
Today's poem marks a new departure for this podcast and this project.
It is one of my own poems, "The Time" by Shane Breslin.
Typically in this podcast I read the poem twice straight th
S3, E10: "Follower" by Seamus Heaney
Welcome to this episode of Poems for the Speed of Life with Shane Breslin, writer, business owner, poetry advocate and poet.
This is Episode 10 of this series of the show on the theme of "Fatherhood”.
Today's poem is "Follower" by Seamus Heaney.
You can read today’s poem here
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For a detailed outline of the mission and purpose behind this podcast, please check out Episode
S3, E9: "Because" by James McAuley
Welcome to this episode of Poems for the Speed of Life with Shane Breslin, writer, business owner, poetry advocate and poet.
This is Episode 9 of this series of the show on the theme of "Fatherhood”.
Today's poem is "Because" by James McAuley.
You can read today’s poem here
***
For a detailed outline of the mission and purpose behind this podcast, please chec
S3, E8: "Michael: A Pastoral Poem" by William Wordsworth
Welcome to this episode of Poems for the Speed of Life with Shane Breslin, writer, business owner, poetry advocate and poet.
This is the eighth episode of this series of the show on the theme of "Fatherhood”.
Today's episode is a different format, because the typical format - reading a poem twice straight through, and then offering some thoughts - couldn't work for a 500-lin
S3, E7: "Weakness" by Alden Nowlan
Welcome to this episode of Poems for the Speed of Life with Shane Breslin, writer, business owner, poetry advocate and poet.
This is the seventh episode of this series of the show on the theme of "Fatherhood”.
Today's poem is "Weakness" by Alden Nowlan.
You can read today’s poem here
***
For a detailed outline of the mission and purpose behind this podcast, pleas
S3, E6: "On my First Son" by Ben Jonson
Welcome to this episode of Poems for the Speed of Life with Shane Breslin, writer, business owner, poetry advocate and poet.
This is the sixth episode of this series of the show on the theme of "Fatherhood”.
Today's poem is "On my First Son" by Ben Jonson.
You can read today’s poem here
***
For a detailed outline of the mission and purpose behind this podcast, please
S3, E5: "The Gift" by Li-Young Lee
Welcome to this episode of Poems for the Speed of Life with Shane Breslin, writer, business owner, poetry advocate and poet.
This is the fourth episode of this series of the show on the theme of "Fatherhood”.
Today's poem is "The Gift" by Li-Young Lee.
You can read today’s poem here
***
For a detailed outline of the mission and purpose behind this podcast, please che
S3, E4: "My Father's Hats" by Mark Irwin
Welcome to this episode of Poems for the Speed of Life with Shane Breslin, writer, business owner, poetry advocate and poet.
This is the fourth episode of this series of the show on the theme of "Fatherhood”.
Today's poem is "My Father's Hats" by Mark Irwin
You can read today’s poem here
***
For a detailed outline of the mission and purpose behind this podcast, pleas
S3, E3: "Father's Song" by Gregory Orr
Welcome to this episode of Poems for the Speed of Life with Shane Breslin, writer, business owner, poetry advocate and poet.
This is the third episode of this series of the show on the theme of "Fatherhood”.
Today's poem is "Father's Song" by Gregory Orr.
You can read today’s poem here
***
For a detailed outline of the mission and purpose behind this podcast, please chec
S3, E2: "The Living Years" by Mike Rutherford
This is the second episode of this series on Fatherhood.
Today's poem is a song lyric: "The Living Years" by Mike Rutherford, of Mike and the Mechanics.
For full show notes please visit the podcast page on Substack.
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All the poems in this series will be about fathers or by fathers.
They will have something vital to show us about the experience, either of fatherhood itself, or of
S3, E1: "Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden
Welcome to another series of Poems for the Speed of Life with Shane Breslin, writer, business owner helping organisations build digital empires, poetry advocate, poet and podcaster.
This is the first episode of this series on Fatherhood.
Today's poem is "Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden.
For full show notes please visit the podcast page on Substack.
All the poems in this seri
Series 3 Trailer: "Fatherhood"
Welcome to another series of Poems for the Speed of Life with Shane Breslin, writer, business owner helping organisations build digital empires, poetry advocate, poet and podcaster.
The next series of Poems for the Speed of Life will begin on Saturday, June 8th, 2024.
The theme for the new series is Fatherhood.
Shane is a father of two school-age children and he sees it as the biggest responsibi
Ep. 212: "Begin" by Brendan Kennelly
Today’s poem is “Begin” by Brendan Kennelly, the much-loved Irish poet who died in 2021 at the age of 85.
It is a poem about the beauty in the awareness of the ordinary precious world around us, and also about the foreverness, the sense of the eternal that comes through all endings and finality and loss.
For full show notes for this episode, visit the episode page on Substack.
Thank you for joinin
Ep. 211: "Dawn Revisited" by Rita Dove
Today's poem is "Dawn Revisited" by Rita Dove, the former US Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winner.
You can read the full show notes and join the community over on Substack here.
You can read the poem here.
Ep. 210: Three Cantos from "In Memoriam AHH" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Today's episode brings you three of the Cantos from "In Memoriam AHH" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, written over 16 years and published in 1850.
You can read the full show notes and join the community over on Substack here.
The full text of the poem is available here.
You can find these three Cantos by scrolling down the page to the Roman numerals XXII (22), V (5) and VII (7).
Ep. 209: "The birthday of the world" by Marge Piercy
Today’s poem is "The birthday of the world" by Marge Piercy, an American writer, poet and activist who has published more than 20 collections of poetry spanning more than 50 years.
This is Episode 9 of this series called "Beginnings", which started with "How Dark the Beginning" by Maggie Smith in Episode 201.
You can read today's poem here
Ep. 208: "The Fisherman", by WB Yeats
Today’s poem is "The Fisherman", by WB Yeats, the Nobel Prize-winning Irish poet who died in 1939.
This is Episode 8 of this series called "Beginnings", which started with "How Dark the Beginning" by Maggie Smith in Episode 201.
You can read today's poem here
Ep. 207: "This is not the end" by Tanner Olson
Today’s poem is "This is not the end" by Tanner Olson, an American poet based in Tennessee.
This is Episode 7 of this series called "Beginnings", which started with "How Dark the Beginning" by Maggie Smith in Episode 201.
You can read today's poem here
Ep. 206: "Dawn at St Patrick's" by Derek Mahon
Today’s poem is "Dawn at St Patrick's" by Derek Mahon, an Irish poet who died in 2020 at the age of 78.
This is Episode 6 of this series called "Beginnings", which started with "How Dark the Beginning" by Maggie Smith in Episode 201.
You can read the poem here
Ep. 205: "Beginning" by Lia Purpura
This is the fifth episode of this series of "Beginnings" from Poems for the Speed of Life.
Today's poem is "Beginning" by Lia Purpura.
Lia Purpura is an American poet, writer and educator who has published four collections of poems, King Baby, Stone Sky Lifting, The Brighter the Veil and the collection from which today's poem is taken It Shouldn't Have Been Beautifu
Ep. 204: "For a New Beginning" by John O'Donohue
This is an episode of a special series of Poems for the Speed of Life titled "Beginnings".
Today's poem is "For a New Beginning" by John O'Donohue.
John O’Donohue was a great Irish spiritual leader, teacher, theologian and philosopher who continues to find new audiences all over the world more than 15 years after his passing at just 54 years of age.
Three earlier John
Ep. 203: "Center of the Universe" by Hannah Emerson
This is the third episode in this series, "Beginnings", on Poems for the Speed of Life.
Today's poem is "Center of the Universe" by Hannah Emerson.
Hannah Emerson is a nonspeaking autistic poet from Lafayette, New York whose work has been featured in The Paris Review, Poetry magazine, and the Poetry Society of America.
Hannah Emerson writes a regular Substack called "
Ep. 202: "Aristotle" by Billy Collins
This is the second episode of a new series of Poems for the Speed of Life titled "Beginnings".
Today's poem is "Aristotle" by Billy Collins, an American poet and former US poet laureate.
Ep. 201: "How Dark the Beginning" by Maggie Smith
This is the first episode of a new series of Poems for the Speed of Life titled "Beginnings".
Today's poem is "How Dark the Beginning" by Maggie Smith.
Maggie Smith is an American poet, writer and editor, not to be confused with the older British film actor. Film does, however, feature in this poem about the nuances of light and dark, and how the dawn, and beginnings, are o
Ep. 200: A New Era for Poems for the Speed of Life
Thank you for listening to Poems for the Speed of Life, with Shane Breslin.
Please enjoy this special episode about the future direction of the podcast, what you can expect and how you can get involved.
There are four announcements:
This podcast will always be free and available wherever you listen to podcasts
If you like you can support the show financially (more details to follow)
The show
Ep. 199: “A Christmas Blessing” by John O’Donohue
Welcome to another episode in this special Christmas and end of year series of this podcast. The work of John O’Donohue, the great Irish spiritual leader, teacher, theologian and philosopher, continues to find new audiences all over the world more than 15 years after his passing at just 54 years of age. Two John O’Donohue poems have been among the most sought after episodes of this podcast. You ca
Ep. 198: "Blessing for the Longest Night" by Jan Richardson
Jan Richardson is an artist, writer, and ordained minister in the United Methodist Church in the USA. She travels widely as a retreat leader and conference speaker.
This poem is part of a special Christmas-themed short series for the end of the year.
You can read the poem here
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For a detailed outline of the mission and purpose behind this podcast, please check out Episode
Ep. 196: "A Child's Christmas in Wales", by Dylan Thomas
Dylan Thomas was a Welsh writer and poet.
This is one of his best-remembered pieces of writing, a long prose poem recounting his memories of the Christmases of his childhood.
This recording was originally made in 2019 as part of a different podcast project, but I thought it would be good to dust it off and re-edit it slightly to include here.
It's one of my favourite pieces of Christmas writin
Intermission: Explaining My Unscheduled Absence
Hi. Thank you for your patience and presence as I think through the next steps for this podcast. Poetry can be a transformational experience, and the last thing I ever want to do is reduce something that’s transformational into something that’s just transactional. Finally, if you would like to let me know what you think, I will gratefully receive your messages. You can email me at shane [at] shane
Ep. 194: "November Night" by Adelaide Crapsey
Adelaide Crapsey was an American poet who died in 1914 at the age of just 36.
She often wrote in the format called the "cinquain", a tightly structured form of poetry that owes something to the old Japanese haiku.
The cinquain includes one stanza of five lines, with a per-line syllable structure of 2-4-6-8-2.
This poem, about the quiet of a November night, is included here because this m
Ep. 193: "To Think of the Life of a Man" by Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry has been writing and publishing poetry and prose for more than 60 years.
He has featured in this podcast before in Episode 70 ("The Peace of Wild Things").
It's interesting that the core idea of that earlier poem, peace, returns here.
What is it to be "at peace and in place"?
What is it for a man to be "at peace and in place"?
What is it for a man
Ep. 192: "Does every generation", by Chantal House
Chantal House is a poet whose recent chapbook is titled "Reaching for the Sun".
The mission behind her work is that everyone should be a poet, and everyone could have poetry as part of their daily cycle.
That mission aligns a lot with the mission of this podcast, to bring one poem, and some of its power, to every day.
You can read the definition of "Does every generati
Ep. 191: "Samhain" by Annie Finch
Annie Finch has been publishing and editing books of poetry and poetics for three decades.
Her most recent book is Earth Days: Poems, Chants, and Spellsin Five Directions (Nirala Publications, 2023).
Samhain is the ancient Irish and pagan festival of the autumn, the Celtic new year and the time when the spirits moved between worlds. It is the ancestor of the modern day Halloween.
There is great my
Ep. 190: (The Definition of) Sonder, by John Koenig
John Koenig's decade-plus-long project, "The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows", earned a fitting celebration in 2021 when the book based upon it became a New York Times Bestseller.
Koenig set out to fill the gaps in our language of emotion, creating words such as kenopsia, dès vu and énouement.
One of the definitions that went viral in the early days of the project, and which continued
Ep. 189: "Friendship is what will save us" by David Gate
David Gate is an English poet based in the United States.
Per his own website, his work centers around care for the individual (heart, mind, body & soul) and the nurture of community (culture, the earth & environment, the dignity of others and spiritual communities).
Those values vibe strongly with the ethos of this podcast.
You can read "Friendship is what will save us&q
Ep. 188: "Late Fragment" by Raymond Carver
Raymond Carver was an American writer and poet who died in 1988.
You can find an earlier poem by Carver, "Happiness", in Episode 5 of this podcast.
This poem is the final poem in Carver's final collection, A New Path to the Waterfall.
Please share your thoughts by joining the Poems for the Speed of Life Substack community here.
You can read "Late Fragment" h
Ep. 187: "Hope" by Vaclav Havel
Vaclav Havel was a Czech writer, dissident and statesman, who was President of Czechoslovakia and later of the new Czech Republic.
This short piece is an essay on the meaning and importance of hope, especially in difficult times.
Please share your thoughts by joining the Poems for the Speed of Life Substack community here.
You can read "Hope" here
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For a de
Ep. 186: "In The Park" by Gwen Harwood
Gwen Harwood was an Australian poet.
In the male-dominated publishing world of the mid-20th century, she had a difficult time getting published, and resorted to submitting work under a range of male pseudonyms.
This poem is an insight into her complex and fraught relationship with womanhood, with motherhood.
Please share your thoughts by joining the Poems for the Speed of Life Substack community
Ep. 185: "The Truelove" by David Whyte
Some poems are straightforward to break down into paragraphs, sentences and clauses, to better extract their meaning.
This one is a little more difficult.
There are three sentences here, but the last of them, when you see the poem laid out on page or screen, spans six stanzas, and takes us to several places in both the physical world and the interior world.
Who is the true love?
Is it the love and
Ep. 184: "Consolation" by Wislawa Szymborska (transl. by Clare Cavanagh)
A gorgeous little poem that takes Charles Darwin and his reputed love of stories as its starting point.
This symbol - one of the fathers of modern science, upholding the value of story as something vital, alongside the scientific fact of his work - presents questions about what truth is.
And asks us to consider whether truth is something more than just a collection of facts.
You can read
Ep. 183: "The Soldier" by Rupert Brooke
What is the role of England in this poem?
Is "The Soldier" a nationalist polemic, glorifying war?
Or can we read the ideal, idyllic England of Rupert Brooke as a symbol of something else?
You can read "The Soldier" here
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For a detailed outline of the mission and purpose behind this podcast, please check out Episode 100, "Why Poems for the Speed of Life
Ep. 182: "Tremolo" by Breda Wall Ryan
Breda Wall Ryan is Irish writer and poet.
She has published two collections of poetry, In a Hare’s Eye and Raven Mothers. Her poems are full of powerful imagery, and she often brings the lives of women into sharp focus.
You can read "Tremolo" on her website here
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For a detailed outline of the mission and purpose behind this podcast, please check out Episode 100, &q
Ep. 181: "Barcelona" by Hugo Dewar
Hugo Dewar was an English poet and communist of the 20th century.
You can read "Barcelona" here
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For a detailed outline of the mission and purpose behind this podcast, please check out Episode 100, "Why Poems for the Speed of Life?", in your podcast player or click here to listen on Spotify.
If you’re on social media, you can follow o
Ep. 180: "If You Have Time" by Nanao Sakaki
Nanao Sakaki was a Japanese poet and wanderer, who has been an inspiration to poets, artists and musicians around the world for the past half century.
In his foreword to Sakaki's collection, How to Life on Planet Earth, his fellow poet Gary Snyder (whose work you can hear in Episode 24 and Episode 116 of this podcast) wrote that he was known as "a uniquely free and bold-spirited wanderer
Ep. 179: "France" by Douglas Dunn
Douglas Dunn is a Scottish poet, who has been publishing collections for more than 50 years.
This poem, "France", was part of a collection of poems written following the death of his wife, Lesley Balfour Wallace, in 1981.
You can read the poem here
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For a detailed outline of the mission and purpose behind this podcast, please check out Episode 100, "Why Poems for the
Ep. 178: "Everything Changes" by Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a Germany playwright and poet of the first half of the 20th century.
He was influenced by and part of the modernist movement which also included the writer James Joyce, the filmmaker Sergey Eisenstein and the artists Pablo Picasso, all of them trying to make sense of a world of rapidly encroaching technology, politics and violence.
You can read the poem here
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For a
Ep. 177: "Softest of Mornings" by Mary Oliver
Many listeners will be familiar with Mary Oliver.
This is the fourth Mary Oliver poem to feature on this podcast.
You can find Snowy Night in Episode 2, The Journey in Ep. 34 and Wild Geese in Episode 143.
This one returns to some gorgeous familiar ground with Mary Oliver — the tension between the sweetness and slowness of the natural world, and the restlessness of human ambition.
You can rea
Ep. 176: "His Stillness" by Sharon Olds
Sharon Olds is an American poet.
She has been publishing poetry for more than 40 years, most recently Balladz, published in 2023.
She has written a lot about men. One of her most famous poems is titled "Ode to the Penis", and in another, "My Son the Man", she write about how she must “get over my fear of men now my son is going to be one”.
This poem is about the terminal diagno
Ep. 175: "As I Began to Love Myself" (Anonymous)
Note: This episode is in a new format. I read the poem twice through and then talk a little about why it's on the podcast and what it might be saying. If you're listening on Spotify, please find the Interact question that reads "What did you think of this episode?" and let me know what you think of this experimental format!
This is a poem that's often attributed to Charlie Ch
Ep. 174: "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" by William Wordsworth
Note: This episode is a slightly different format than usual. It's a small experiment to see how it goes down with listeners, where I read the poem twice through and then ad-lib a little about why it's on the podcast and what it might be saying. If you're listening on Spotify, please find the Interact question that reads "What did you think of this episode?" and let me know w
Ep. 173: "The Work of Happiness", by May Sarton
Note: This episode is a slightly different format than usual. It's a small experiment to see how it goes down with listeners, where I read the poem twice through and then ad-lib a little about why it's on the podcast and what it might be saying. If you're listening on Spotify, please find the Interact question that reads "What did you think of this episode?" and let me know w
Ep. 172: "Dreams", by Langston Hughes
Note: This episode is a slightly different format than usual. It's a small experiment to see how it goes down with listeners, where I read the poem twice through and then ad-lib a little about why it's on the podcast and what it might be saying. If you're listening on Spotify, please find the Interact question that reads "What did you think of this episode?" and let me know w
Ep. 171: "Night Mail", by WH Auden
Note: This episode is a slightly different format than usual. It's a small experiment to see how it goes down with listeners, where I read the poem twice through and then ad-lib a little about why it's on the podcast and what it might be saying. If you're listening on Spotify, please find the Interact question that reads "What did you think of this episode?" and let me know what you think of this
Ep. 170: "Success", by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson was an eminent American writer and philosopher of the 19th century. He is also heralded as the forefather of Transcendentalism, a literary, philosophical, religious, and political movement of that century.
Emerson and his fellow Transcendentalists criticised the society of which they were a part, calling to task its unthinking conformity. They urged that each person find, in Em
Ep. 169: "The Laughing Heart", by Charles Bukowski
Charles Bukowski was a German-born American poet who died in 1994 at the age of 73.
His poems are raw, written in the spoken language of ordinary people, and opening up their hearts and their nerves to the possibilities of pain that are ever-present in the everyday.
Lurking beneath that pain, though, there is always with Bukowski some slight sense of humour — the humour to be found in bleakness an
Ep. 168: From "Anniversaries of War", by Yehuda Amichai
Yehuda Amichai was an Israeli poet who died in the year 2000 at the age of 76.
His lifetime showed him all sides of persecution and despair, war and violence.
Born in Germany in the 1920s, his Jewish family fled in the 1930s to Palestine and later Israel.
A teacher, he served in the Israeli forces in the Sinai War in 1956 and the Yom Kippur War in 1973.
With these experiences, and his own sensibil
Ep. 167: "The Guy in the Glass", by Dale Wimbrow
Dale Wimbrow was an American music composer, radio artist and songwriter, but who among us really knows for what we’ll be remembered for?
(A quick aside to point you for a moment to Episode 81, "In a Restaurant" by Stephen Santus, which has a playful little take on the tiny things we might be remembered for.)
Wimbrow, who died in 1954 at the age of 58, wrote this piece for The American M
Ep. 166: "Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market", by Pablo Neruda
WB Yeats asked in his poem "Among School Children", how can we know the dancer from the dance?
This fusion — the artist with the art — presents us with fascinating and troubling questions.
Is the artist an artist solely?
Where does humanity enter and exit?
In what way is the art itself more important than love and kindness, even if the love and kindness might in some way threaten the
Ep. 165: "Desiderata", by Max Ehrmann
Today’s poem is not dissimilar in tone or content to the piece included in Episode 159 recently.
That piece, by Mary Schmich, and now popularly known as “Wear Sunscreen”, was a sort of commencement address, a speech delivered to college graduates as they prepare to enter the “real world” and find their way.
This poem by Max Ehrmann also has that air.
Max Ehrmann was an American writer and poet wh
Ep. 164: "Compost Piles", by Wendy Morton
Poetry, says Wendy Morton, is the shortest distance between two hearts.
The first time I read that quote, I read it as the shortest dance between two hearts, and I like that too.
Wendy Morton is a Canadian writer and poet.
The blurb of her memoir, Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast: Taking Poetry Public Across Canada, says that she has “probably done more to bring poetry and publicity together
Ep. 163: "Blackberry-Picking", by Seamus Heaney
As I record this, in September, the year has swayed totally from summer to autumn. A week ago we had a heatwave, the mercury rose past 30 degrees Celsius and everyone went to work in shorts. Today, the branches are swaying in the wind, the rain is heavy, the temperatures have dropped and the evenings are closing in.
This poem by Seamus Heaney is set in late August, at that moment between the passa
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