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.
“Mysterious Encounters”: Three sing-songy poems are featured on today’s episode. All three depict encounters between two individuals: all three resist our efforts to make...
“Gifts”: One poet recalls her complex strategies as a teen gift-giver, a second recalls the gift his parents bestowed on him when he was...
“Meta-Verse”: The four poems on this episode make a virtue out of being self-conscious. Each poem comments on the very poem we’re reading. The...