George Ella Lyon is a former Poet Laureate of Kentucky. Her poem “Receiving” is a touching meditation on holding a squirming newborn and the complex emotions it evokes. Martha reads the poem from Lyon’s collection Back to the Light (Bookshop|Amazon)...
To garner the laurels, meaning “to collect praise,” refers to the ancient practice of awarding crowns of bay laurel leaves to victors in competitions. This tradition of honoring distinction with such a wreath is reflected in the terms Nobel laureate...
Former U.S. Poet Laureate Kay Ryan once observed that a poem should act like a clown suitcase, one you can open up and never quit emptying. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Poems are like a Clown Suitcase” I was reading an...
Martha’s enthusiastic about the book Poetry 180: A Turning Back To Poetry, edited by former Poet Laureate Billy Collins. One gem in there by Robley Wilson, called “I Wish in the City of Your Heart”, provides a lovely image of that moment when the...
Martha reads a poem by former U.S. Poet Laureate Kay Ryan called “The Long Up.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “The Long Up, A Poem” One of my favorite hikes here in beautiful Southern California is to a mountaintop. And every...
For 341 years, the poets laureate of Britain have all been male. That just changed with the appointment of Britain’s new poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy. Her work has been described as “dealing with the darkest turmoil and the lightest minutiae of...
