The Daily Poem
The Daily Poem offers one essential poem each weekday morning, drawing from a wide range of poets from Shakespeare and John Donne to Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson. Hosted by David Kern with various contributors, it presents a broad audio anthology of poetry read aloud. The show includes light commentary, and shorter poems are often read twice when time allows. It is presented by Goldberry Studios and is available via Substack.
Episodes
Shel Silverstein’s “Sick”
Today’s poem is angling for a day off. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
David Wagoner’s “The Junior High School Band Concert”
“No doubt, in his mind’s earSome band somewhereIn some music of some SphereWas striking a note as pureAs the wishes of Franz Schubert,But meanwhile here we were” Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
William Blake's "The School Boy"
Today’s poem is a more eloquent version of an appeal being made in many households this month. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Bill Watterson's "The Yukon Song"
Today’s poem turns the Yukon territory into every boy’s dream. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Thomas Dekker's "The Happy Heart"
Today’s poem ponders the soft pillow of poverty and even boasts a Beatles connection. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
John Donne's "The Good-Morrow"
“My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears.” In today’s poem, love awakens the sleeper to new life. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Walter de la Mare's "Silver"
Today’s poem is bathed in moonlight. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
St. John of the Cross's "The Soul Aflame"
Today’s poem is another contemplation of ambivalence toward life that conceals a deeper commitment to life. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Angela Morgan's "Work: A Song of Triumph"
Today’s poem is a very enthusiastic paean to work (doth the lady protest too much?). Happy Monday and Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Robert Louis Stevenson's "Consolation"
Today’s poem is a tender consolation after the loss of a friend, suitable for young and old alike. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Francis Thompson's "The Kingdom of God"
In today’s poem, the transcendent is immanent. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Emily Dickinson's "If I can stop one heart from breaking"
Today’s poem uses an unrhymed line to make its point. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Oscar Wilde’s “Portia”
In today’s poem, an embodied literary character possesses the power to steal the hearts of living men. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Robert Service's "The Law of the Yukon"
Today’s poem might be the photo-negative of Emma Lazarus’ “The New Colossus;” the personified Yukon does not mince words in saying the tired, huddled masses come at their own risk. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Wisława Szymborska's "In Praise of My Sister"
Today’s poem enjoys (among other things) the sheer relief of escaping from other poets. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Ezra Pound's "Meditatio"
Today’s poem ponders man’s dignity. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Thomas Lux’s “A Little Tooth”
Today’s poem lets the reader experience all the dread and feeling of parenthood in nine lines. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Herman Melville's "In the Prison Pen"
Today’s poem comes from a writer not remembered for his poetry, but when Melville’s early success as a novelist seemed to falter, he dedicated a number of years and considerable energies to poetry instead. This poem describes the dehumanizing conditions on a Civil War prison camp. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus e
Carl Sandburg's "Back Yard"
Today’s poem is all summer atmosphere. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Robert Frost's "For Once, Then, Something"
Today’s poem is a poem about the way looking gets in the way of what we perceive. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Edgar Guest's "A Boy and His Dad "
Today’s poem speaks unironically of a pastoral Eden where fathers and sons commune with one another while the fish jump. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Richard Armour's "Parental Pride"
Today’s poem takes a well-meant jab at the things we say about babies. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
William McGonagall's "Attempted Assassination of the Queen"
Today’s poem comes from the pen of the perfect mid-week poet. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Prudentius' "The Passion of the Apostles Peter and Paul"
Today’s poem, originally a 4th-century Latin composition, details the celebration of Sts. Peter and Paul in ancient Rome. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Pablo Neruda's "Ode To The Artichoke"
Today’s poem is a paean to the world’s greatest vegetable. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Pablo Neruda's "Sonnet XVII"
Today’s poem, probably Neruda’s best-known (tr. Stephen Mitchell), goes out to all the June brides. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Mary Oliver’s “No Matter What”
Today’s poem tangles and untangles the sweet permanence of impermanence. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Czeslaw Milosz’s “Dedication”
“You whom I could not save/Listen to me./Try to understand this simple speech as I would be ashamed of another./I swear, there is in me no wizardry of words./I speak to you with silence like a cloud or a tree.”Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Joyce Kilmer’s “The House with Nobody In It”
Today’s poem, not a cowboy poem per se, nevertheless tells the story of a frontier mentality and the meeting points of civilization and desolation. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Bruce Kiskaddon's "When They've Finished Shipping Cattle in the Fall"
Today’s poem is about the memories that come flooding in when the season’s work is done and the cowboy’s body finally relaxes. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Curley Fletcher's "The Strawberry Roan"
Today’s poem, about an unbreakable horse, is a classic example of a unique American genre–the cowboy poem. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ “The Last Vegetable”
Today’s poem is about loyalty to the toughest crop in town. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Paisley Rekdal's "Pear"
Today’s poem has some strong words for the apple. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Blaze Koneski's "Peppers"
Today’s poem, translated by Kristian Josifoski, makes a pepper into more than a pepper. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Rudyard Kipling's "The Lie"
Today’s poem is all about the correlation between the elaborate architecture of a lie and the pleasure that telling it can give. Maybe an allegory for art? Maybe a playful confession? Maybe a political commentary? Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
A. F. Moritz's "On Distinction"
Today’s poem is about the strange whys and ways of trying to endure in this world. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
John Crowe Ransom's "Piazza Piece
Today’s poem is an open-ended sonnet-versation (sonnet conversation) between youth and experience–with the rarer twist that the dynamic is here presented in the context of a potential romance. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Maurice Manning's "To the People of Sangamo County"
“The effort to be/ accomplished, without experience,/ is something to pity”Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Paul Laurence Dunbar's "In Summer"
There are few joys as pure as singing in the summer time. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est"
Today’s poem is one of the best known English war poems, both challenging popular notions of the glories of warfare and acknowledging the oft-unseen sacrifices of service. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
John Ciardi's "An Emeritus Addresses the School"
“…a word might turn youall the bent ways to love, its merciespracticed, its one day at a timebegun and lived and slept on and begun.” Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Matthew Zapruder's "Graduation Day"
Today’s poem is not the one you should read at graduation parties this month. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Lisa Olstein's "Dear One Absent This Long While"
Today’s poem–from Olstein’s first collection, Radio Crackling, Radio Gone (2006)–is a melancholy collection of the little things we’d like to say to someone who isn’t there. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Ron Padgett's "Poem"
Today’s poem is the experience of having duties in the spring time rolled into the experience of reading every poem ever written. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Gerard Manley Hopkins' "Spring and Fall"
Today’s poem is for the Maggies, the Margarets, and for anyone who gets moody in the springtime and can’t explain why. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Christina Rossetti's "Spring"
“There is no time like Spring that passes by,/Now newly born, and now/Hastening to die.” Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Alexander Pope's "To Mrs. M. B. On Her Birthday"
Today’s poem argues you don’t have to like birthdays to have a happy one. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Randall Jarrell's "Well Water"
Today is the birthday of poet Randall Jarrell, and today’s poem does what birthdays themselves can sometimes do: remind us of the simple glories of every-day existence. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
R. S. Thomas' "This"
Today’s poem uses the clever manipulation of a symbol to tease out the heart of male communication. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Ogden Nash's "Taboo to Boot"
Today’s poem is guaranteed to make you itch. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Robert Burns' "John Barleycorn"
Today’s poem is about the necessary death and resurrection of the titular figure. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
A. R. Ammons' "Poetics"
Today’s poem is about the attention needed to find…a poem. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
from Malcolm Guite's "Galahad and the Grail"
Today’s poem, singing of the first trial of Sir Galahad, is an excerpt from Malcolm Guite’s Arthurian ballad, Galahad and the Grail. Happy reading.Galahad and the Grail is available from all booksellers, or in special editions direct from the publisher. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/su
Norman Maccaig's "Interruption to a Journey"
Today’s poem captures the stab and indelible imprint of unintended destruction. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
James Joyce's "On the Beach at Fontana"
Today’s poem is from an author seldom associated with poetry today, though in his lifetime his verse garnered considerable recognition. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Edward Rowland Sill's "The Fool's Prayer"
Today’s poem presents two kinds of fools–those who know they need mercy, and those who don’t. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Ellis Parker Butler's "The Final Tax"
Today’s poem is very much on-brand for Butler, whose best-known short story, “Pigs is Pigs,” concerns “a bureaucratic stationmaster who insists on levying the livestock rate for a shipment of two pet guinea pigs.” Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
R. S. Thomas' "The Bright Field"
In today’s poem the speaker has seen the light. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Jonathan Henderson Brooks' "The Resurrection"
Now Calvary was loveliness:/Lilies that flowered thereuponPulled off the white moon’s pallid dress,/And put the morning’s vesture on. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
"Pangur Ban"
Today’s poem, translated by Robin Flowers, was originally written in Old Irish inside an 8th-century scribe’s copy of St. Paul’s epistles. However, it reveals its anonymous author to be anything but a bored and disinterested grunt. Happy reading.N.B. Here is a wonderful reading of the poem in Old Irish. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to
William Shakespeare's "Sonnet 99"
Today’s poem is one of Shakespeare’s “irregular” sonnets–he’s got 99 problems (most of them flowers), but strict obedience to the requirements of the sonnet form ain’t one. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Nicholas Samaras' "The Second Death of Lazarus"
Today’s poem imagines the long life of Lazarus as he awaits, like Eliot’s magi, “another death.” Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Sean Johnson's "How many beards gild the lapses of time"
Today’s poem is a hirsute parody of a much better poem. Sorry in advance. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Elizabeth Drew Barstow Stoddard's "One morn I left him in his bed"
In the 19th century, poems about the loss of children became a little genre of their own. Today’s poem is a decidedly uncharacteristic example of the form. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Seamus Heaney's "Poem"
Today’s poem answers the question you never thought to ask: what do a poem, a barnyard, and a marriage have in common? Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Rainer Maria Rilke's "Annunciation to Mary"
In today’s poem, Rilke (trans. J.B. Leishman) imagines the Annunciation from Gabriel’s perspective. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper's "Dandelions"
Today’s poem wonders what it means to recognize and appreciate a gift. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Naomi Shihab Nye's "My Uncle’s Favorite Coffee Shop"
Today’s poem contemplates the ways and “why”s of saying nothing, before culminating in a shattering pun on “nothing.” Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
W. H. Auden's "Funeral Blues"
Today’s poem began its life as a bit of black humor, but lives on as a raw and relatable expression of real grief. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Thomas Hardy's "During Wind and Rain"
Today’s poem juxtaposes scenes of summer warmth to scenes of torrential bluster with a seamlessness that would make the best film editor jealous. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
William Carlos Williams' "Love Song"
Today’s poem captures the agonies and ecstacies of thinking about the absent beloved. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Rhina P. Espaillat’s “Butchering”
Today’s poem employs an image worthy of Homer to touch the stark reality of a mother’s intuition. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Beowulf prepares for battle
Today’s poem is a selection from the Old English, Beowulf, translated by R. M. Liuzza. In these lines, Beowulf prepares for a harrowing showdown with Grendel’s mother, and the cold, clear beauty of the lines almost makes you wish you were there. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack
T. S. Eliot's "Macavity: The Mystery Cat"
Today’s poem answers the question: if cats are the animal world’s “Napoleon of crime,” who is the cat world’s “Napoleon of crime?” Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Robert Graves' Proem to The Iliad
Today’s poem comes from Graves’ verse/prose rendering of Homer’s Iliad, The Anger of Achilles, and highlights the inglorious causes of the Trojan War’s glorious climax. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Wilfred Owen's "Anthem for Doomed Youth"
Today’s poem is a sonnet for a war-torn world with a collapsing center. “…As the oldest of four children born in rapid succession, Wilfred developed a protective attitude toward the others and an especially close relationship with his mother. After he turned four, the family moved from the grandfather’s home to a modest house in Birkenhead, where Owen attended Birkenhead Institute from 1900 to 190
Wendy Cope's "Men and Their Boring Arguments"
Today’s poem goes out to all of the women who have been stuck between two pugilistic men at a dinner party. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Anna Kamienska's "On the Threshold of the Poem"
Today’s poem asks: “What happens inside a poem?” Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Charles Lamb's "Cleanliness"
Today’s poem is a seemingly innocuous enjoinder to handwashing that nevertheless invites a deeper inspection. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Friedrich von Schiller's "Light and Warmth"
Anyone with children can recognize the degree to which we enter this life “Warm with the noble vows of youth,/Hallowing [one’s] true arm to the truth.” Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
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