The Daily Poem
The Daily Poem offers one essential poem each weekday morning. From Shakespeare and John Donne to Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson, The Daily Poem curates a broad and generous audio anthology of the best poetry ever written, read-aloud by David Kern and an assortment of various contributors. Some lite commentary is included and the shorter poems are often read twice, as time permits. The Daily Poem is presented by Goldberry Studios. dailypoempod.substack.com
Seamus Heaney's "A Basket of Chestnuts"
Todayâs poem is an ekphrasis on a portrait of the poet himselfâall that the portrait does and doesnât capture or convey.
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Billy Collins' "Candle Hat"
Todayâs poem is a lighter take on the self-portrait ekphrasis. What is it about the self-portrait that is so intriguing to poets, anyway?
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Elizabeth Jennings' "Rembrandt's Late Self-Portraits"
Elizabeth Jennings (1926-2001) was born in Boston, Lincolnshire but moved to Oxford at the age of six where she lived for the rest of her life. She studied at St. Anneâs College, Oxford and worked in advertising, at the City Library and briefly in publishing before becoming a full-time writer. Her consistent devotion to poetry yielded over twenty books during her life, a New Collected Poems appearing in 2002. Although initially linked to the group of poets including Kingsley Amis, Philip Larkin and Thom Gunn known as âThe Movementâ, Jenningsâ work doesnât share their irony or academic wit. However, t...
Richard Howard's "Gustave Dore"
Richard Howard (born Oct 13, 1929, died march 31, 2022) was credited with introducing modern French fictionâparticularly examples of the Nouveau Romanâto the American public; his translation of Charles Baudelaireâs Les Fleurs du Mal (1984) won a National Book Award in 1984. A selection of Howardâs critical prose was collected in the volume Paper Trail: Selected Prose 1965-2003, and his collection of essays Alone with America: Essays on the Art of Poetry in the United States since 1950 (1969) was praised as one of the first comprehensive overviews of American poetry from the latter half of the 20th century. First and foremost a poet, Ho...
Edwin Markham's "The Man With the Hoe"
ekphrasis: âDescriptionâ in Greek. An ekphrastic poem is a vivid description of a scene or, more commonly, a work of art. Through the imaginative act of narrating and reflecting on the âactionâ of a painting or sculpture, the poet may amplify and expand its meaning.
Once internationally famous as the author of the poem "The Man with the Hoe," Edwin Markham (1852-1940) was a popular American literary figure during the first half of the 20th century whose works espoused progressive social and spiritual beliefs. In contrast to the experimentalism and pessimism that generally characterized poetry of this era, Mar...
Lewis Carroll's "The Walrus and the Carpenter"
Todayâs poem is in honor of April being (according to now-outdated tradition) the last prudent month till Autumn in which to eat oysters. Happy reading!
Self-effacing, yet having an expressive critical ability; reveling in the possibilities of fancy, though thoroughly at home with the sophisticated nuances of logic and mathematics, Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) was an individual who, through his rare and diversified literary gifts and power of communication, left an indelible mark upon the imaginations of children and adults both during his generation and in generations to come. His best-known works, Aliceâs Adventures in W...
Derek Walcott's "Sea Grapes"
West Indian poet and playwright Derek Walcott made his debut as an 18-year-old with In a Green Night. For many years he divided his time among Saint Lucia; Boston University, where he taught; and Trinidad, where he managed a theater. Walcott also worked as an artist and combined his poetry with painting in the volume Tiepoloâs Hound (2005).
Walcottâs works often deal with Caribbean history, while he simultaneous searches for vestiges of the colonial era. Western literary canon is revised and given a completely new form, as in the poetry collection Omeros (1990). In his writing Walcott expl...
George Herbert's "The Church-floore"
In todayâs poem: George Herbert meditating on the simple profundity of a single, sustained metaphor. Happy reading.
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Ogden Nash's "Very Like a Whale"
Todayâs poemâa layered, jokingly-serious response to one of last weekâsâcomes from Ogden Nash, dubbed the âLaurate of Light Verse.â Which banner would you rally underâNash or Byron?
One of the most widely appreciated and imitated writers of light verse, Frediric Ogden Nash was born in Rye, New York, on August 19, 1902, to Edmund Strudwick and Mattie Nash. He came from a distinguished family; the city of Nashville, Tennessee, was named in honor of one of his forbearers. Nash attended Harvard College, but dropped out after only one year. He worked briefly on Wall Street, and as...
Gerard Manley Hopkins' "That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the Comfort of the Resurrection"
A joyous Eastertide and happy reading to you all!
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