Poems for Company - July 22nd, 2024

“Swimming”: We dive in with two action-packed excerpts from ancient poetic narratives. Both depict heroic swimmers moving through dangerous waters. This episode concludes with a contemporary American poet’s solitary naked swim in a pond in the early morning mist. Homer, The Odyssey (trans. Robert Fitzgerald), from Book V, lines 403-408, 415-437, 441-486. Beowulf (trans. Seamus Heaney), lines 506-510, 515-518, 532-581 (Norton, 2000). Maxime Kumin, “Morning Swim,” from Selected Poems 1960-1990 (Norton), used by kind permission of the Maxine Kumin Literary Trust. {Splash!, by Howard Means, provided useful, entertaining context.} The show’s theme music is Philip Aaberg’s “Going-to-the-Sun,” from his CD Live from Montana (available at sweetgrassmusic.com) and used with kind permission of...