September 14, 1972 Reading in San Francisco. Splendid!

Jeff Bethke’s spoken word poem is mega viral… Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus…

Robert Hass, a great poet, served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995 to 1997. He lives in California with his wife, poet Brenda Hillman, and teaches at the University of California, Berkeley. Here he reads his poem Time and Materials.

James Joyce’s Poems Get a Musical Facelift

In 1907, shortly after publishing a book of love poetry titled Chamber Music, Irish writer James Joyce penned a letter to his brother Stanislaus: “Some of the verses are pretty enough to be put to music. I hope someone will do so, someone that knows old English music such as I like.” A century later, a group of independent electronic, folk and rock musicians have done just that.

All 36 verses from Joyce’s book of poetry have been put to music by artists such as Peter Buck from R.E.M. and Lee Ranaldo from Sonic Youth. Click the following link to listen to some of Joyce’s stanzas put to music:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91757715

You can hear the full story from NPR below…

The poet Emily Dickinson suffered from severe anxiety. In her series of poems, “Part 1, Life, XCVIII,” she writes: “While I was fearing it came, But came with less of the fear, Because that fearing it so long, Had almost made it dear.”

The lyrics from her poem are used as the basis for a rock song about anxiety. It’s called “Fearing,” by the band, The Amygdaloids

Pablo Neruda is one of my preferred poets. No poet has more passionately and thoroughly spoken for his people than Neruda. “Canto General,” his 15-part book comprising over 200 poems tracing the history of Latin America practically unified a country.

Deborah Ager, born in 1971, co-founded the poetry magazine known as 32 Poems in 2003. Her manuscript, Midnight Voices, was published by Cherry Grove Collections. She’s one of my preferred young American poets.

Summer Nights, by Deborah Ager

Lamoni, Iowa

The factory siren tells workers time to go home
tells them the evening has begun.
When living with the tall man

whom I didn’t love, I would wander
the streets, dreaming of Italy.
Trekking the handful of avenues

with him, he would say look there
between pink cobblestones,
there’s manure like mortar.

The sweet smell of it Wednesday nights,
the night before auction,
when the misery of cows greets me

heading home through town.
Lake quiets, tired of my lies.
When will I tell truths again?

The siren. My love is home.
Nights, we stay in and X the days.

e.e. cummings, one of the most popular poets of the 20th century. Cummings’ poetry often deals with themes of love and nature, as well as the relationship of the individual to the masses and to the world. He often injects striking satire into hiw work.

Idiosyncrasy of syntax, unique arranging of individual words into larger phrases and sentences are some of his hallmarks. Many of his most striking poems do not involve any typographical or punctuation innovations at all, but purely syntactic ones.

Here Cummings reads “next to of course god america i”…and yes, he meant not to capitalize the title

Famous writer and former Vermont Poet Laureate Ruth Stone has passed away. She was 96. Stone wrote poems for decades but it wasn’t until she reached her 80s and 90s that she saw success. Now her books are sold in places nationwide, including bookstores in her own state, such as Phoenix Books in Essex Junction. In her many years, Stone wrote of love, death and nature.

One of my preferred poets is Sarah Kay, a spoken word poet and the founder of Project V.O.I.C.E., a national movement that celebrates and inspires youth self-expression through spoken word poetry. I find her to be one of the great young poets of today.