Our summer season of Poetry Centered is off to a great start! In case you missed it, here are the first three episodes:
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 importance (“Sixth Street Corporate War”). Olatunde closes with his own self-identification, “Self-Portrait in Lieu of My EP.”
Find the full recordings of Spears Jones, Parker, and Reed reading for the Poetry Center on Voca:
Patricia Spears Jones (October 21, 2017)
Morgan Parker (September 6, 2018)
Ishmael Reed (March 29, 1989)
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 world (“In My Life”). She closes with her own “Cosmic Madonna,” an ekphrastic poem inspired by Salvador Dali.
Watch the full recordings of Rankine, Reddy, and Donnelly reading for the Poetry Center on Voca:
Claudia Rankine (October 19, 2005)
Srikanth Reddy (November 12, 2015)
Timothy Donnelly (October 19, 2023)
You can also enjoy a recording of Mary Jo Bang reading for the Poetry Center in 2011.
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 poem “This City,” which ends with renewal.
Watch the full recordings of Murillo, Sok, and Dominguez reading for the Poetry Center on Voca: