Best University of Arizona Poetry Center Podcasts (2024)

1
Vickie Vértiz: Path to a Future 24:05

1M ago24:05

24:05

Vickie Vértiz curates poems that chart a path to a collective future where we can survive crises, connect with others, and see life’s beauty. She introduces Khadijah Queen looking to words as weapons amidst grief (“bloodroot,” “Dear fear…”), Lehua M. Taitano moving through the luminous ocean of time (“Queer Check-Ins”), and Angel Dominguez breaking…

1
Eugenia Leigh: Proclaim a Rising 31:12

2M ago31:12

31:12

Eugenia Leigh introduces poems that speak from a particular moment into our own time, offering possibility amidst struggle. She shares John Murillo’s engagement with resistance and reality (“Enter the Dragon”), Monica Sok’s truth-telling about genocide (“Tuol Sleng”), and Angel Dominguez’s joyful protest against capitalism. Leigh closes with her po…

1
Mary Jo Bang: Astonishment 32:38

2M ago32:38

32:38

Mary Jo Bang brings together poems united by astonishment at the continuation of a world that seems utterly self-destructive. She shares Claudia Rankine on the illusions of American optimism (“Don’t Let Me Be Lonely”), Srikanth Reddy on mortality and teaching literature (“Underworld Lit”), and Timothy Donnelly on the human experience of a polluted …

1
Olatunde Osinaike: Nobody Gets to Question What I Feel 25:18

3M ago25:18

25:18

Olatunde Osinaike curates poems that meld comedy, cultural scrutiny, and self-imagination. He introduces Patricia Spears Jones clearing a path for desire (“Self-Portrait as Midnight Storm”), Morgan Parker pursuing feeling through description (“Magical Negro #217: Diana Ross Finishing a Rib in Alabama, 1990s”), and Ishmael Reed satirizing wealth and…

1
Sawako Nakayasu: Grief Textures 44:05

8M ago44:05

44:05

Sawako Nakayasu selects poems that confront griefs personal and national, told directly and obliquely. She introduces Timothy Liu documenting the atrocities of Japanese imperialism (“A Requiem for the Homeless Spirits”), Daniel Borzutzky’s translation of Raul Zurita witnessing to the brutal crimes of the Chilean dictatorship (“Song for His Disappea…

1
Jake Skeets: Saad, Where We All Started 30:10

9M ago30:10

30:10

Jake Skeets curates poems by Diné poets centering on translation and the way that the Diné language orients its speakers to the world, which exists before them. He shares Rex Lee Jim’s invocation of voice as what brings life (“Language”), Laura Tohe’s embodiment of meaning in rhythm and sound (“Niltsá Bi'áád, Female Rain” and “Niltsá Bika', Male Ra…

1
Sally Wen Mao: Poetic Awakening 36:14

10M ago36:14

36:14

Sally Wen Mao shares poems that trace her awakening as a poet, invoking teachers both in person and on the page. She introduces Claribel Alegría on how to express the unknowable and untraceable (“Savoir Faire”), Terrance Hayes on transformation as the role of poetry in the world (“The Deer”), and Bhanu Kapil on poetic language as a means of collaps…

1
Lauren Camp: Our Little Perfections 23:13

10M ago23:13

23:13

Lauren Camp selects poems that each inhabit a place, a music, another person—shaping a cosmos large or small in language. She introduces Beckian Fritz Goldberg synchronizing past and present (“Black Fish Blues”), Olga Broumas moving through shadows toward individual lives (“The Moon of Mind Against the Wooden Louver”), and Lisel Mueller cherishing …

1
Sophia Terazawa: Enemy, Beloved 33:58

1y ago33:58

33:58

Sophia Terazawa introduces poems that lead us to encounter both the beloved and the enemy, seeing them blurred and intertwined—seeing them as human. She shares Joy Harjo’s prayer of courage for the heart (“This Morning I Pray for My Enemies”), Khaled Mattawa’s recognition of the faceless dead (“Face: To the One Million Plus”), and Carolyn Forché’s …

1
Bonus: Radical Reversal in Birmingham 16:11

1+ y ago16:11

16:11

Radical Reversal highlights the reformative abilities of the arts by bringing poetry, music, and music production workshops—along with performance and recordings spaces—to detention centers and correctional facilities. In this bonus episode, Radical Reversal co-founder Randall Horton shares recordings from three youth writers and performers who wor…

1
Manuel Paul López: Small and Immense Mysteries 28:02

1+ y ago28:02

28:02

Manuel Paul López curates poems that draw us into the nourishing mysteries of water. He shares Ofelia Zepeda’s evocation of moisture’s deep ties to people and land ("The Place Where Clouds Are Formed"), Li-Young Lee’s meditation on weeping and the gifts given by those we’ve lost ("'Why are you crying,' my father asked…"), and Quincy Troupe’s precis…

1
Evie Shockley: Courage to Speak, Courage to Hear 38:59

2y ago38:59

38:59

Poet and professor Evie Shockley introduces poems woven together by a subtle thread of committed attention to place and what happens there—the places of language, self, ancestry, and tragedy. She introduces Mónica de la Torre engaging with languages as wild topography ("Is to Travel Getting to or Being in a Destination"), Marilyn Chin uncovering th…

1
JD Pluecker: Always Returning 32:50

2y ago32:50

32:50

Undisciplinary writer and translator JD Pluecker curates recordings that circle around themes of return, transformation, history, and the future. Pluecker introduces Joy Harjo finding what remains in the wreckage (“New Orleans”), Andrea Lawlor considering how one thing turns into another (excerpt from “Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl”), and C.…

1
Juan Felipe Herrera: Humanity, Compassion, Action, Protest 1:04:56

2y ago1:04:56

1:04:56

Former U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera shares poems that consider the questions, what exactly is poetry? What does it do? Herrera crafts an expansive answer to these questions through Marvin Bell’s reflection on poetry as philosophy (“The Poem”), Denise Levertov’s engagement with truth in sacred spaces (“The Day the Audience Walked Out on Me…

1
Matthew Zapruder: Poems for Passengers 25:38

2+ y ago25:38

25:38

Matthew Zapruder selects poems that employ the powers of song, memory, and imagination as points of reflection and comfort amidst the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He shares Adam Zagajewski conjuring a life lost to his family (“To Go to Lvov”), Gerald Stern recognizing the fortunate circumstances of his domestic and writing lives (“Lucky Life”), and…

1
Khadijah Queen: Keywords 32:00

2+ y ago32:00

32:00

Khadijah Queen homes in on her selections by following three keywords through the archive: disobedience, Detroit, and joy. She introduces Rachel Zucker’s lecture on the confessional mode in poetry (“What We Talk About When We Talk About the Confessional and What We Should Be Talking About”), francine j. harris’s lyric dense with complicated emotion…

1
Sara Borjas: A Particular 'Us' 23:31

2+ y ago23:31

23:31

Sara Borjas introduces poems that focus on the connections between a particular, collective ‘us’—people connected by lineage or language, by place, or by the acts of writing and reading. She shares Layli Long Soldier’s exploration of wholeness and mother-daughter relationships (“WHEREAS her birth signaled…”), Juan Felipe Herrera’s centering of peop…

1
Chet’la Sebree: Liminality 17:32

2+ y ago17:32

17:32

Chet’la Sebree leads us to acknowledge liminal spaces, those places that are not quite one thing or another, moments of transition and not-yet that have become so familiar to us throughout the pandemic. Sebree introduces Camille T. Dungy’s recognition that grief relentlessly intrudes on joy (“Notes on What Is Always with Us”), Brenda Shaughnessy’s …

1
Anthony Cody: Necessary Discomfort 23:09

2+ y ago23:09

23:09

Anthony Cody selects poems that ask hard questions about war, borders, gender, power, US history, and ourselves—questions asked in order to remind us of the discomfort necessary for change on individual and collective levels. Cody shares Pat Mora’s inversion of relationships between speaker and audience, pursuer and pursued (“La Migra”), Michael S.…

1
Wendy Xu: Why Write 25:02

2+ y ago25:02

25:02

Wendy Xu curates poems that underscore the necessity of attention for the writing of poems, reminding us that to write is to think, to look, and to be present. She introduces James Tate on bending reality through attention to everything (“Rescue”), Mei-mei Berssenbrugge on the connection between the spiritual and the somatic (“Hello, the Roses”), a…

1
Eduardo C. Corral: The Possibilities 17:15

3y ago17:15

17:15

Eduardo C. Corral introduces recordings by poets who create and encourage possibilities for others through their inquisitive teaching, their artistic commitment to mystery, or by being fully themselves. He celebrates Beckian Fritz Goldberg’s dedication to delight and surprise (“The Possibilities”), Bei Dao’s inscrutability for the way it affirms th…

1
Sumita Chakraborty: Odes to the Overlooked 19:14

3y ago19:14

19:14

Sumita Chakraborty curates poems that draw our attention to the overlooked: to the body’s cycles, to cruelty, to deep attention, to trauma and what comes after. She introduces Lucille Clifton on accepting change and growth (“to my last period”), Ai on the link between violence and loss (“Cruelty”), and Nora Naranjo Morse on vulnerability as potenti…

1
Silvina López Medin: Writing about Writing 16:53

3y ago16:53

16:53

Silvina López Medin introduces poems that reflect on the writing process and the openings we encounter therein when boundaries blur between speaker and listener, creator and creation. She shares Robert Hass on going to the movies and Greek rhetorical devices (“Heroic Simile”), Adélia Prado on the earthy charms of poetry (“Seduction,” read by Prado’…

1
Adam O. Davis: Sonic Road Trip 22:58

3y ago22:58

22:58

Adam O. Davis selects and shares poems that engage with journeys—across time, through mystery, into the past, or to shape a future. He introduces Nathaniel Mackey meditating on eternal questions (“Glenn on Monk’s Mountain”), Maurya Simon reminding us that the dead surround and sustain us (“El Día de los Muertos”), and Robert Creeley poignantly spea…

1
Adrian Matejka: Cruelty 16:46

3y ago16:46

16:46

Adrian Matejka reflects on cruelty as manifested in American institutions, history, private lives, and the public realm of the past year. He opens with Ai’s invocation of the human hunger for violence (“Cruelty”), Lucille Clifton’s deft blending of imagery and wisdom (“cruelty. don’t talk to me about cruelty”), and Al Young’s meditation on American…

1
Joanna Klink: A Blazing Intensity 25:03

3y ago25:03

25:03

Joanna Klink curates poems that blend dream and waking, sparking ordinary life with visionary fire. She shares Jon Anderson wrestling with the desire to walk away (“In Autumn”), Sherwin Bitsui’s haunting epic of water (“Flood Song”), and Linda Gregg’s dreamscape of life without loneliness (“Alma to Her Sister”). Klink closes by reading her poem “On…

1
Rosa Alcalá: Bodies, Presence, Performance 54:20

3+ y ago54:20

54:20

Rosa Alcalá curates poems in which the body plays a central role as a performing presence. She selects and shares Roberto Tejada’s exploration of control and surrender (“Sun bursting as in water beads”), Rosmarie and Keith Waldrop’s stereophonic collaborative poem (“Light Travels”), and Black Took Collective’s daring, experimental performance piec…

1
Bojan Louis: The Poem, Listening 24:28

3+ y ago24:28

24:28

Bojan Louis shares poems that embody deep listening and engagement with particular realities. He introduces Alan Dugan’s grasp of each moment’s truth (“Love Song: I and Thou”); Layli Long Soldier’s poetry of image, witness, and ways of being (“WHEREAS her birth signaled…”); and Angel Nafis’s critical song that speaks to community (“Ghazal to Open C…

1
Peggy Robles-Alvarado: Whistle, Hum, and Heartbeat When Negotiating Identity 27:54

3+ y ago27:54

27:54

Peggy Robles-Alvarado introduces poems that embody complex identities with honesty, exuberance, and strength. She shares Toi Derricotte’s frank look at the experience of shifting from woman to mother (“Delivery”), Judith Ortiz Cofer’s reckoning with leaving childhood behind (“Quinceañera”), and Ada Limón’s celebration of self-worth and self-pride…

1
Allison Adelle Hedge Coke: Belonging and Being 17:39

3+ y ago17:39

17:39

Allison Adelle Hedge Coke curates poems by writers who have influenced her own writing through their creative leadership, mentoring, or poetics of belonging. She introduces Juan Felipe Herrera’s invitation to a spirit of generosity and care (“Let Us Gather in a Flourishing Way”), Quincy Troupe’s musically attuned tribute to his father (“Poem for My…

1
Francisco Aragón: A Speaking Voice 29:35

3+ y ago29:35

29:35

Francisco Aragón shares poems alive with the vibrancy of a particular voice addressed to a particular audience. He introduces Francisco X. Alarcón’s bittersweet homage to a poetic ancestor (“Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón”), Thom Gunn’s farewell address to a beloved fellow writer (“To Isherwood Dying”), and Denise Levertov’s mythic, ecstatic monologue on…

1
Jane Hirshfield: The Hinge of Possibility 32:17

3+ y ago32:17

32:17

Jane Hirshfield curates poems that look into the abyss with brave clarity and complex humility. Hirshfield shares Eavan Boland’s probing into the place of shadows that history passes by (“Quarantine”), Miroslav Holub’s reminder that there is life and meaning beyond human precision (“Brief Thoughts on Exactness”), and Tomas Tranströmer’s marrying of…

1
Douglas Kearney: Not a Melody, but a Thorn 23:49

3+ y ago23:49

23:49

Douglas Kearney discusses recordings that give rise to reflections on human interaction and the potential for both connection and violence held there. Kearney introduces Rosa Alcalá as she uses found text to chart the shape of violence (“Are You Okay?"), Martín Espada as he encounters “reeling hyper-reality” in the courtroom (“City of Coughing an…

1
Cynthia Cruz: Quotidian, Transcendent 15:42

3+ y ago15:42

15:42

Cynthia Cruz introduces poems that mingle “the everyday with the mystical, the unreasonable,” the poems' meaning and beauty transcending the words themselves. Cruz considers the urgency of the quotidian in Denis Johnson’s “The Monk’s Insomnia,” the magical life a poem can carry within itself in Jon Anderson’s “Fox,” and negation as a place of begin…

1
Jack Jung: Echoes of Yi Sang 31:16

4y ago31:16

31:16

Jack Jung shares poems in which he hears echoes of the themes, musicality, and imagery of Korean modernist poet Yi Sang. Shadow selves recur in each selection: Jung introduces early recordings of James Tate in 1968 on sparring with his shadow (“Shadowboxing”) and W.S. Merwin in 1969 reading a mythical poem about anti-creation (“The Last One”). He a…

1
Michelle Whittaker: Sound and Story 18:04

4y ago18:04

18:04

Michelle Whittaker presents recordings of poems that display their writers’ skill with both narrative and sound as they each consider the body as a site of conflict and grace. Whittaker considers the way Robert Hass employs sound to communicate strong emotion (“A Story About the Body”), connects with Ellen Bryant Voigt’s memories of seeing a family…

1
Oliver Baez Bendorf: Showing Up in Our Own Lives 21:58

4y ago21:58

21:58

Oliver Baez Bendorf shares recordings of poets that encourage him to “show up in [his] own life” through both their poetry and the way they themselves move through the world as thinkers, activists, and people. He celebrates Trish Salah’s intelligence and generosity of mind (“Tiresias as Cuir (on the run)”), CAConrad’s expressiveness of voice and co…

1
Randall Horton: Instruments for Change 38:27

4y ago38:27

38:27

Randall Horton introduces poems that ask us to consider intensely difficult situations, seeing anew their complexity and the humanity of the people involved. He discusses Reginald Dwayne Betts’ exploration of the 1980s crack cocaine epidemic and mass incarceration (“The Invention of Crack”), Brian Turner’s masterful use of point of view (“2000 lbs.…

1
Bonus: Inspiring K-12 Students with Voca 17:12

4y ago17:12

17:12

Teaching artists from the Poetry Center’s Writing the Community program offer ideas for using recordings from Voca to inspire K-12 students. Kristen E. Nelson discusses the benefits of using a simple, concrete parameter—such as writing about the moon—for younger students. She shares moon poems by Al Young (“Excerpt from ‘About the 22 Moon Poems’” a…

1
TC Tolbert: Deep Presence 36:45

4y ago36:45

36:45

TC Tolbert shares recordings that express a willingness to be deeply present, including a poem by Akilah Oliver that records intimacy with grief (“Selections from the Putterer’s Notebook and ‘An Arriving Guard of Angels, Thusly Coming to Greet’”), a poem by Rigoberto González that brings exquisite specificity to a migrant’s narrative (“The Bordercr…

1
Maggie Smith: A Conversation with Our Own Minds 16:42

4y ago16:42

16:42

Maggie Smith approaches poems as a poet’s best teacher in this episode, calling poems “a conversation we have with our own minds.” Smith shares a poem by Donald Hall that shaped her early days of writing (“Gold”), a Lynn Emanuel poem that she prizes for its perfection of word choice (“Stone Soup”), and a prose poem by Jenny Boully that engages the …

1
Urayoán Noel: Radical Imagination 40:51

4y ago40:51

40:51

Urayoán Noel introduces recordings of Ai engaging with war through necessary fury (“The Root Eater”), Lehua M. Taitano composing a lifeline to communities living with the legacies of colonialism (“A Love Letter to the Chamoru People in the Twenty-first Century”), Ofelia Zepeda on the untranslatability of song (“Ñeñe'i Ha-ṣa:gid / In the Midst of So…

1
Hanif Abdurraqib: A Brilliant Unfurling 28:02

4y ago28:02

28:02

Hanif Abdurraqib presents poems that offer listeners an invitation to reflection via rich details, repetition, and rhythm. He discusses his admiration for Ross Gay’s tenderness (“To the Fig Tree on 9th and Christian”), shares a long poem by Juliana Spahr that creatively engages with the political (“Gentle Now, Don’t Add to Heartache”), and praises …

1
Ada Limón: A Way Forward 20:10

4y ago20:10

20:10

Ada Limón shares poems that speak to finding a way forward through moments of crisis and struggle. She discusses Lorna Dee Cervantes on being courageous enough to be alone (“Crow”), the enduring relevance of poems written in a particular moment, like Mark Wunderlich’s “Peonies,” and Lucille Clifton’s anthem on need, defiance, and making it up as we…

1
Alison Hawthorne Deming: The Big Story of Life on Earth 32:10

4y ago32:10

32:10

Alison Hawthorne Deming introduces recordings of Diane Ackerman reading a love poem for an extraterrestrial (“Ode to the Alien”), Cornelius Eady choosing gratitude as a response to anger and racial discrimination (“Gratitude”), and N. Scott Momaday describing a memorable encounter with Georgia O’Keeffe (“Forms of the Earth at Abiquiu”). Deming also…

1
Introducing Poetry Centered 2:21

4+ y ago2:21

2:21

Poetry Centered is a new podcast featuring curated selections from Voca, the University of Arizona Poetry Center’s online audiovisual archive of more than 1,000 recordings of poets reading their work during visits to the Center between 1963 and today. In each episode, a guest poet introduces three poems from Voca, sharing their insights about the r…

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