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
Seamus Heaney’s “Storm on the Island”
Today’s poem weathers the unfriendliness of the natural 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
William Shakespeare’s “As fast as thou shalt wane...” (Sonnet 11)
In today’s poem the bard urges his subject not to bury the gifts of Nature in the grave. Happy reading.Want to send your teen to a day of Shakespearean wisdom (and folly) this July? You can find out more about the CiRCE Institute National Conference and our Pre-Conference event for high schoolers here: Love All, Trust a Few This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscri
Li Bai’s “Taking Leave of a Friend”
Today’s poem–a masterclass in subtlety and imagery–makes you feel the scale of the farewell before it arrives. 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
“Sweeney Praises the Trees”
Today’s poem, translated from the Irish by Seamus Heaney, delivers precisely what the title promises. 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
Helen Hunt Jackson’s “September”
Today’s poem praises September and mystifies it with a coy turn in the final stanza. Enjoy the last day of this finest of months. 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 Yellow Bird”
Today’s poem is a lament over a caged beauty. 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 Lear’s “How Pleasant To Know...”
Today’s poem is a comic self-portrait in verse from a poet who spent years working as a painter. 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
Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “Crossing the Bar”
In today’s poem, death is a country beyond the sea. 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
George Herbert’s “The Pulley”
Today’s poem gives us a poet making sense of his restlessness and finding in it the mechanism that draws him upward to God. 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
Marsden Hartley’s “Salutations to a Mouse”
In today’s poem, the poet discovers unexpected value in his writing. 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
Annie Dillard’s “How we spend our days”
Today we are remembering Annie Dillard. Her poem offers not only advice for living, but an approach to understanding a life in retrospect. 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
Algernon Charles Swinburne’s “Sestina”
Today’s poem heightened the form it’s named for by adding patterned rhyme. Even with the added complexity, this sometimes-rigid form strikes the ear as verse that is smooth and unassuming. 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
Scott Cairns’ “Chemo With Coleridge”
Today’s poem, from Cairns’ new Against Certainty, ponders the value of intravenous poetry. 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
Wendell Berry’s “Sabbath Poem III, 1994”
Today’s poem is, quite simply, one of my favorites. Berry uses Shakespeare to tell us we cannot see our life clearly until we have passed through 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
Wendell Berry’s “The Guest”
Today’s poem confesses the discomfort and undesirability of loving our neighbor. 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
Wendell Berry’s “In a Motel Parking Lot, Thinking of Dr. Williams”
Today’s poem is part tribute, part poetic manifesto. 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
Jane Austen’s “Mock Panegyric on a Young Friend”
Today’s poem marshals Austen’s characteristic wit to praise feminine virtues via comparison to American geography. Fellas, don’t try this at home. 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 Barrett Browning’s “Grief”
Today’s poem, pitting Victorian stoicism against Victorian sentimentality, contends that the truest grief is the most austere and long-lived. 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
Wendell Berry’s “Testament”
Composed in 1971 as a self-eulogy, today’s poem is a remembrance of Wendell Berry who embarked for the greater Port Royal yesterday at the age of 92. May his memory be eternal. 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
Oliver Wendell Holmes’ “The Last Leaf”
Holmes wrote that the man who inspired today’s poem reminded him of "a withered leaf which has held to its stem through the storms of autumn and winter, and finds itself still clinging to its bough while the new growths of spring are bursting their buds and spreading their foliage all around it." Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get a
Francis Jammes’ “A Prayer to Go to Paradise with the Donkeys”
Today’s poem, translated by Richard Wilbur, is part animal appreciation, prayer for a good 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
William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 71 (“No longer mourn for me when I am dead”)
Today’s poem has a different preoccupation than most Shakespearean sonnets–not immortalizing the beloved, but effacing the lover. 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 Milton’s Proem to Paradise Lost
Today’s poem is the opening lines of a famous epic poem–composed by a blind poet, about the fall of a great kingdom, a devious stratagem, and a long journey home. 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
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
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