Do we imagine the dead as content in their zone, or do they express anxieties about how the world of the living functions in their absence? Poems in this episode offer contrasting answers: Frederic Weatherly's "Danny Boy"; A.E. Housman's "Is My Team Ploughing?"; Thomas Hardy's "Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave?"; John McCrae's "In Flanders Fields"; Homer's depiction of Odysseus' dialogue with his dead mother in the Underworld (from The Odyssey, Book 11); Ted Kooser's "Old Cemetery" (from Delights and Shadows, Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 2004), used with permission of Copper Canyon Press, coppercanyonpress.org.
“Revised Bible Stories”: Poets give voice to characters who are silent in the Bible, and they speculate on what the Bible left out. They...
“Parents Viewed Unconventionally”: Three contemporary female poets comment on one or more parents in somewhat unexpected ways. Molly Twomey, “The Drop Off,” from Raised...
“Neighbors”: When you recall the places where you lived, do you inevitably reflect on who else was in close proximity? This episode presents three...