Share
Read Me a Poem
“Letter to the Front” by Muriel Rukeyser
•
Recently, a listener requested a longer work by the poet Muriel Rukeyser, whose poetry is not as widely known 40 years after her death as it should be. Amanda Holmes joined our sister podcast Smarty Pants recently to discuss why Rukeyser’s work speaks to her and then to read the long poem cycle “Letter to the Front,” written in 1944.
Go beyond the episode:
- Listen to our sister podcast, Smarty Pants
- Read “Letter to the Front” by Muriel Rukeyser
- Try not to chuckle as Rukeyser reads her poem “Waiting for Icarus,” written from the perspective of the ill-fated man’s wife
- The Book of the Dead (1938), reissued in 2018 by West Virginia University Press, was written in response to the 1931 Hawks Nest Tunnel Disaster, in which hundreds of miners, mostly Black, died of silicosis. Rukeyser combined her own observations with trial testimony from the surviving miners’ lawsuit against their employer.
- “In moments of desperation, a favorite poem has resurfaced lately, sometimes on Twitter and sometimes in memory,” writes Sam Huber in The Paris Review, of Rukeyser’s “Poem” from 1968 that begins “I lived in the first century of world wars”
Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you’ll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman.
This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch.
More episodes
View all episodes
“The Imaginary Iceberg” by Elizabeth Bishop
03:31Amanda Holmes reads Elizabeth Bishop’s “The Imaginary Iceberg.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you’ll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman.This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch.From Las Cosas Nuevas by Ennio Moltedo
04:49Amanda Holmes reads the second poem from Ennio Moltedo’s Las Cosas Nuevas, translated by Marguerite Feitlowitz. Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you’ll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman.This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch.“Nostos” by Louise Glück
02:20Amanda Holmes reads Louise Glück’s “Nostos.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you’ll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman. This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch.“The Limits of Love” by Yahia Lababidi
02:01Amanda Holmes reads Yahia Lababidi’s “The Limits of Love.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you’ll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman. This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch.“Said Hanrahan” by John O’Brien
05:13Amanda Holmes reads John O’Brien’s “Said Hanrahan.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you’ll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman. This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch.“My Possessions” by Charles Simic
02:14Amanda Holmes reads Charles Simic’s “My Possessions.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you’ll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman. This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch.“The Sick Wife” by Jane Kenyon
02:16Amanda Holmes reads Jane Kenyon’s “The Sick Wife.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you’ll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman. This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch.“Snow” by David Berman
02:27Amanda Holmes reads David Berman’s “Snow.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you’ll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman.This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch.“I Want to Write” by Margaret Walker
02:06Amanda Holmes reads Margaret Walker’s “I Want to Write.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you’ll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman. This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch.