Poems for the People
By Mischa Willett
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Podcast Description
“It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there” -William Carlos Williams This podcast features the selection and performance of poems both classical and contemporary by Mischa Willett. The goal is to provide interpretive readings that help the poems breathe, and to introduce work with which the audience may not be familiar. The goal is to re-gift from the great treasure house of poetry, for him who has ears to hear.
| Name | Description | Released | Price | ||
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1 |
David Wagoner "Wading in a Marsh" | A lucky find for this traveller half a world away. A very northwestern poem from the Seattle poet's 1981 collection "Landfall." (pictured here is the cover of his Collected, from 2005, probably the better investment). | 10/24/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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2 |
Bruce Bond "Milk" | This poem is newly published in the Winter/Spring 2010 issue of Crab Orchard Review and has not yet been reprinted in any collections of the poet's work. | 6/8/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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3 |
Heather McHugh "Recurrent Dream" | A finalist for both the Pulitzer and the National Book Award, McHugh's work is smart and snarky, and more formal, usually, than you're probably thinking it is. | 6/6/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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4 |
Rainer Maria Rilke "You Who Never Arrived" | Likely composed for his long-time lover Lou-Andreas Salome, this is a poem of devotion to a not-quite-consumated and possible future. | 6/4/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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5 |
Mischa Willett "Hadriana, My Love" | A poem of my own, from the book WAX, available for the iPhone/iPad through the iBooks app. Thanks for your indulgence. www.mischawillett.com Terrific music from "The Fretful Porcupine" | 8/26/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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6 |
Sierra Nelson "We'll Always Have Carthage" | I'm sending you a postcard from the end of the world. | 8/24/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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7 |
Brad Davis "Quiet Words" | A place-poem from the book "Like Those Who Dream" that is deceptively simple. Those who know mythology will be right to detect a note of menace in those ferries going back and forth across the water. | 8/13/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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8 |
Czeslaw Milosz "Realism" | A poem from the end of Milosz's considerable life and output. The viewer enters the artwork as a pilgrim to it, and slips gracefully through the ice of his own twilight. | 7/15/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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9 |
Percy Bysshe Shelley "Lines Written in the Bay of Lerici" | This short lyric is the last finished poem we have of Shelley's. He was in the middle of "The Triumph of Life," when we drowned off the Italian coast in the Bay of Spezia along with Edward Williams, husband to this poem's likely addressee, Jane Williams. | 6/22/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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10 |
Richard Kenney "Air Sublime" | Experiences of the sublime are supposed to overwhelm one's intelligence. However tawdry the airline industry has managed to make flying, it's still FLYING. | 5/21/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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11 |
Mark Halliday "Refusal to Notice Beautiful Women" | Halliday's ingenious productivity suite. | 4/20/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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12 |
Bruce Beasley "Self-Portrait in Ink" | Why all these poems out poets'-selves? Is the self a suitable topic for poetry? Beasley opens a pretty interesting vein of discussion at the close of the confessional school in this smart, and sonically-motivated piece on the transience of ink. | 4/16/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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13 |
Alfred Lord Tennyson "Ulysses" | The problem of a leader who doesn't know his people; the problem of men and women passing their lives in front of televisions. | 3/26/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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14 |
Laura McKee "Strategy for the Decline" | A meditation on art-making, and cycling, and any striving, from Seattle poet Laura Mckee. | 3/24/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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15 |
Dylan Thomas "Fern Hill" | In his apartment, they found 40 copies of this poem when Dylan Thomas died, each one slightly different, reflecting the perfectionist craftsman even in this child-like reverie of a farm in summer. | 3/12/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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16 |
Dean Young "Ode to Hangover" | Dean Young's books are hip and smart, and, thanks to Believer books, beautifully produced. This poem has been useful on more than one occasion; a sort of "morning after" consolation. | 2/28/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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17 |
W.H. Auden "Musee des Beaux Arts" | A classic piece of ekphrastica, Auden visits a museum in this terrific poem from 1938, and let's the work teach him. Visit the art blog I mentioned at Icarus Also Flew, to read more about the story of Icarus. | 2/19/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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18 |
Matthew Dickman "Classical Poem" | From the book "All-American Poem," which is sprawling, and surprisingly vulnerable debut from a terrifically gifted, and generous poet from Portland, Or. | 2/11/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
| Total: 18 Episodes |
Customer Reviews
Excellent Taste
This is an outstanding podcast. Mr. Willett reads the poems with mystery and meaning. He selects interesting contemporary poets and other great 20th century poets. There are not many podcasts that focus on really good contemporary poetry as opposed to only the "classics."
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