The Poetry Radio Project
Listening to the World
Mary Oliver reads a selection of her poems.
» "Wild Geese"
» "I Happened to Be Standing"
» "The Fourth Sign of the Zodiac"
» "The First Time Percy Came Back"
» "Franz Marc's Blue Horses"
The Poetry of CreaturesWendell Berry reads his poems.
» "The Contrariness of the Mad Farmer"
» "How to be a Good Poet"
» "The Man Born to Farming"
» "The Peace of Wild Things"
» "Sabbaths - 1979, IV"
» "Sabbaths - 1985, I"
» "Postscript to "The Landscaping of Hell: Strip-Mine Morality in East Kentucky""
The Inner Landscape of Beauty
A special hour of poetry dedicated to the late Irish poet, John O'Donohue.
» "A Blessing for One Who Holds Power"
» "Beannacht"
» "For the Pilgrim a Kiss: The Caha River"
» "For the Pilgrim a Kiss: Between Things"
» "For the Pilgrim a Kiss: Body Language"
» "The Nativity"
The Poetry of Ordinary Time
Hear the poet Marie Howe recite her poetry.
» "Magdelene—The Seven Devils"
» "Annunciation"
» "Prayer"
» "Hurry"
» "The Gate"
» "The Meadow"
The Ecstatic Faith of Rumi
Presents the texts and readings of the Sufi mystic's poems in Persian and in English, with male and female voices.
» "Song of the Reed"
» "The Promise"
» "A Great Wagon"
» "Like This"
» "On God"
» "On Language"
» "On the World"
» "On Love"
Opening to Our Lives
Hear Derek Walcott's poem recited by Jon Kabat-Zinn, who said that a prose statement was "bound to be inadequate" in communicating his point.
A Wild Love for the World
Joanna Macy reads poems by Rainer Maria Rilke.
» "Onto a Vast Plain"
» "The Swan"
» "Widening Circles"
» "Go to the Limits of Your Longing"
» "Let This Darkness be a Bell Tower"
» "Dear Darkening Ground"
» "God's True Cloak"
A Call to Doubt and Faith, and Remembering GodPoetry from Christian Wiman, Osip Mandelstam, and Robert Bringhurst.
» "And I Said To My Soul, Be Loud"
» "Every Riven Thing"
» "For D."
» "From a Window"
» "Hammer Is the Prayer"
» "It Takes Particular Clicks"
» "The Reservoir "
» "This Mind of Dying"
» "And I Was Alive" by Osip Mandelstam
» "These Poems, She Said" by Robert Bringhurst
Words that Shimmer
Poems by Elizabeth Alexander and Gwendolyn Brooks.
» "One Week Later in the Strange"
» "Neonatology"
» "Autumn Passage"
» "Praise Song for the Day"
» "Ars Poetica #100: I Believe"
» "Translator (James Covey)"
» "Three Poems from 'Miss Crandall's School for Young Ladies & Little Misses of Color"
» "Kitchenette Building" by Gwendolyn Brooks
Revealing Ramadan
Poetry was Adnan Onart's response to our invitation for expressions of Muslim identity. He first submitted "Morning Prayer" — which he wrote as he was coming out of a deep depression.
» "Ramadan in Dunkin Donuts
» "Ribbon Time: The Moment"
» "Al Miraj"
» "Morning Prayer"
Fragility and the Evolution of Our Humanity — A Geophysicist's View
Xavier Le Pichon describes how his mother taught him a version of this lovely Sully Prudhomme poem. Read our commissioned English translation, and listen to a Québécois poet to recite the poem in French and English.
»"Le Vase Brisé / The Broken Vase"
What We Nurture
Sylvia Boorstein always carries a poem by Pablo Neruda with her, no matter where she goes. She read it for us before a live audience in suburban Detroit.
»"Keeping Quiet" by Pablo Neruda
Repossessing Virtue: Living Differently, Beyond Economic Crisis
One of the voices in this episode mentioned this Wendell Berry poem as one of her favorites. Listen to Krista recitation and read the text.
Suicide, and Hope for Our Future Selves
Jennifer Michael Hecht's compelling poetry in the face of suicide makes the case to "stay."
»"Men Wept"
»"No Hemlock Rock"
Alzheimer's, and the Spiritual Terrain of Memory
The poet Sean Nevin has led writing groups with Alzheimer's patients and lived through his own grandfather's struggle with this disease.
»"Oblivio Gate"
» "Self-Portraits from the Widow House"
Laying the Dead to Rest
The Argentine poet Alicia Partnoy recites her verse. And a poem by Chilean poet Marjorie Agosin — in English and Spanish.
»"Survivor"
»"Testimony"
»"Epitaph"
»"A Homespun Love"
»"How many times …"
The Soul in Depression
Features poetry for reflection, help, and healing from Rainer Marie Rilke, Anita Barrows, Jane Kenyon, and the Book of Psalms.
» "Back" by Jane Kenyon
» "Questo muro" and "Heart Work" by Anita Barrows
A History of Doubt
Includes the poetry of guest Jennifer Michael Hecht.
» "No, I Would Not Leave You If You Suddenly Found God"
» "History"
SoundSeen (our multimedia stories)
Children of the Disappeared (Video)
The legacy of Argentina's Dirty War lives on in the children of those who disappeared. We pair their portraits with the poetry of Alicia Partnoy, a survivor from that time and place.
We've woven together the late Irish poet John O'Donohue's reading of his poem with his friends' photographs of the Celtic landscapes he loved.
About the Project
The poet Percy Shelly once wrote "poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world." Often poetry is able to say what prose cannot. We've been seeking poets and poetry to provide fresh insights for our episodes. We're collecting the results of those efforts here, whether they're from our episodes, blogs, or special features.
Poetry on the Blog
by William Blake
by Yahia Lababidi
by Pádraig Ó Tuama
by Rabindranath Tagore
by Parker Palmer
by Mary Oliver
by Willow Harth
by Elizabeth Jennings
by Marge Piercy
by David Ray
by Stephen Levine
by Rumi
by Hafiz
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
by Mary Oliver
by W.H. Auden
by William Stafford
by Jeanne Lohmann
by Anne Hillman
by Mary Oliver
by David Whyte
by Wendell Berry
by Rumi
by Mary Oliver
by Ron Wallace
by Billy Collins
by W.S. Merwin
by Rainer Maria Rilke
by Marge Piercy
by Billy Collins
by Mary Oliver
by David Wagoner
by Yehuda Amichai
by Julie Cadwallader-Staub
by Stanley Kunitz
by William Stafford
by May Sarton
by Mary Oliver
by Parker Palmer
by Rumi
by Lynn Ungar
by A.E. Lefton
The Poetry Radio Project