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.
To learn more about Oliver de la Paz, visit his website (https://www.oliverdelapaz.com/).
If you love this poem as much as we do, please purchase a copy of The Diaspora Sonnets (https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324092988) (Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2023), which was long-listed for the 2023 National Book Award in Poetry and a finalist for the 2024 Paterson Poetry Prize. Thanks to Liveright and W. W. Norton for granting us permission to read this poem.
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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.
Arthur Sze is the 25th Poet Laureate of the United States. To learn more about Arthur Sze and his amazing work, click here (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/arthur-sze).
Thanks to Copper Canyon Press for granting us permission to read this poem. You can find "Papyrus Pantoum" in Into the Hush (https://citylights.com/hardcover-poetry/into-the-hush/) (Copper Canyon Press, 2025).
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Episode 97: Donald Justice, Pantoum of the Great Depression
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.
God's Grandeur
By Gerard Manley Hopkins
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
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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.
This poem comes from Ted Kooser's Pulitzer-Prize winning book, Delights and Shadows, published by Copper Canyon Press in 2004. Thank you to Copper Canyon Press for permission to read the poem for this episode.
For the text of the poem, see here: https://www.versedaily.org/student.shtml
For Ted Kooser's personal webpage, see here: https://www.tedkooser.net/
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.
Ireland