April is national poetry month. NWPB’s Lauren Gallup interviewed Tacoma’s poet laureate on the art form, and its lasting influence. Continue Reading Tacoma’s Poet Laureate On The Art Form And Its Lasting InfluenceRead More
More Murrow News Stories PULLMAN WASH.- Like many students, Washington State University senior Makenzie Campbell is celebrating the start of a new school year, but that’s not the only thing she has to celebrate. At the age of 21 Makenzie has just released her third poetry book “Rooms of the Mind”. “I got into writing… Read More
LISTEN BY RACHEL MARTIN April is National Poetry Month, a celebration of poets and poetry that’s been in place for 25 years. Last month, as the U.S. grieved over attacks against Asian Americans, NPR’s Morning Edition collected poems on how people grapple with the increased violence and discrimination. Over 500 listeners shared powerful, poignant poems… Read More
In Dr. Fady Joudah’s poem “House of Mercury,” a severe summer storm has blown over Houston. The storm’s destructive winds woke up the narrator’s father, who hears the “snaps and creaks” of the two oaks in the front yard. But it was a “nearly uprooted fig tree,” the poem notes, that brought the father to tears. Read More
The author of two poetry books and a member of the Lhaq'temish (Lummi) Nation, Priest is the sixth poet and first Native person to be selected for the two-year term, a program of the Washington State Arts Commission and Humanities Washington. Continue Read More
The book is guided by the structure of time. We go full circle from June through to May; summer through to spring. There is a poem for each month, just as there is a poem for each feeling. Pleasure, annoyance, boredom, spiritual awakening — we feel it all. And as the poems travel through time, the poet's vulnerability and loneliness are palpable enough to, perhaps Read More
Tove Ditlevsen's brilliance is evident when you read her confessional memoir, The Copenhagen Trilogy, which is newly available in a crisp translation by Tiina Nunnally and Michael Favala Goldman. Told in a sneakily plain, highly addictive voice, it's the portrait of the artist as a young woman who wrote as hard as she lived. Read More
When Amanda Gorman wrote her poem, “The Miracle of Morning,” it was early on in the coronavirus pandemic, when we were only beginning to comprehend the scale of national mourning to come. But even then, she wanted to acknowledge the promise of healing, like the light of morning, that springs from despair. Read More
Amanda Gorman echoed, in dynamic and propulsive verse, the same themes that Biden has returned to again and again and that he wove throughout his inaugural address: unity, healing, grief and hope, the painful history of American experience and the redemptive power of American ideals. Read More
As we enter 2021, we can all draw inspiration from both King and Hughes. Morning Edition resident poet Kwame Alexander and host Rachel Martin suggest we write our way out of the unprecedented events of the past year and into a space of possibility. Read More
In this episode of 'Traverse Talks with Sueann Ramella,' poet and professor Ross Gay discusses ways to recognize and incorporate tenderness into your life. Ramella and Gay cover everything from the benefits of gardening to why he doesn't often give advice. Read More
The way loneliness skulks in one of Elizabeth Acevedo’s poems probably would have felt familiar even before the pandemic forced us into more isolating situations. Continue Reading Elizabeth Acevedo’s Poetry Extends A Helping Hand In Our Read More
Pulitzer-winning poet Jericho Brown shares how growing up in a Black church exposed him to the art of performative poetry at a young age and how that propelled him to dedicate his life to poetry starting in his early twenties. Continue Reading ‘Traverse Talks’ Episode 5: Pulitzer Read More
Poet Jordan Chaney, from Pasco, Washington, joins this episode of "Traverse Talks" and gives advice on how to be a true ally and setting and respecting boundaries when talking about race. Continue Reading ‘Traverse Talks’ Episode 2: Poet Jordan Chaney On Acknowledging, Read More
"Look at all the wisdom, look at all the heart that is imprisoned in our society," says Hank Willis Thomas, cofounder of the art installation project. Continue Reading ‘The Writing On The Wall’ Finds Poetry Behind Bars, Read More
The 2020 Nobel Prize in literature was awarded to U.S. poet Louise Glück "for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal." Continue Reading Nobel Prize In Literature Awarded To U.S. Poet Louise Read More
When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through collects the work of more than 160 poets. "A poem opens up time, it opens up memory, it opens up place," says Harjo, U.S. Poet Laureate. Continue Read More
Playwright, musician, and author Nate Marshall has a new book of poetry out, called Finna. He says the title comes from the common Southern phrase "fixing to," which is all about what happens next. Continue Reading In ‘Finna,’ Read More
Anaya's 1972 classic Bless Me, Ultima — about a young Mexican American boy and his curandera mentor in New Mexico in the 1940s — inspired a generation of Chicano writers. Continue Reading Rudolfo Anaya, A Founding Father Of Chicano Read More
This year's Pulitzer Prize Board awarded its first Audio Reporting award to the staff of This American Life, for a piece on the Trump administration's "remain in Mexico" policy. Continue Reading 2020 Read More
Kwame Alexander, NPR's poet in residence, reads the latest crowdsourced poem, this one focused on how you've been affected by and coping during the global coronavirus pandemic. Continue Reading ‘If The Trees Can Keep Dancing, So Read More
Yo-Yo Ma has brought joy to listeners for decades with his virtuosic musicianship. Now, he is using his music to offer some comfort to a global audience in the midst of a pandemic that has sparked widespread anxiety and pain. Read More
Poet Natalie Diaz returns, interrogating the lasting effects of colonization asking: If a colonizer's influence can't be eradicated from a culture, how can you push back against violence and erasure? Continue Reading BOOK Read More
Morning Edition's resident poet Kwame Alexander compiled your poems inspired by memories of home, and the final crowdsourced poem is full of rich details of where you're from. Continue Reading ‘Where I’m From’: A Read More
The haiku that listeners sent us about summer evoked all kinds of memories. Some said the season reminds them of ice cream or trips to the beach. Others shared precious memories of young love. Continue Reading Beach Adventures And Falling In Love: Summer Read More
Poet, writer and musician Joy Harjo — a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation — often draws on Native American stories, languages and myths. But she says that she's not self-consciously trying to bring that material into her work. If anything, it's the other way around. Read More
It's that time of the year when we tip our hats — and yours — to the art of the verse. All month, tweet your mini poems with the hashtag #NPRPoetry, and we'll pick some to feature on-air and online. Continue Reading Celebrate National Read More
The Beat Generation icon and owner of City Lights bookstore and press in San Francisco is still writing. He celebrates his centennial March 24, and his new autobiographical novel is out now. Continue Reading A Lost ‘Little Boy’ Read More
Four programs this March examine myriad aspects of women’s history, from poetry. Tina Fey takes you into the hidden world of girls around the world, Meryl Streep narrates a program about how women poets radically changed American poetry, and hear about the women pilots of World War II. More about these programs and when to… Read More
Oliver wasn't always appreciated by critics, but she was still one of the country's most popular poets. In 2012, she told NPR, "Poetry, to be understood, must be clear." Continue Reading Beloved Poet Mary Oliver, Who Believed Poetry Read More
After finishing her degree in CWU’s Professional and Creative Writing program and an MFA from Lindenwood University, the 23-year-old Savannah Slone is releasing her first chapbook, 'Hearing the Underwater,' on January 4 with Finishing Line Press. Read More
Poet Tess Taylor says a good poem can "reroute your day" in under five minutes. She offers suggestions for poetry that "takes you to a different place, and then allows you to return a little altered." Continue Reading Poetry Read More
For the Mexican holiday Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, writing rhyming poems called calaveras literarias — mocking epitaphs for the dead or satire targeting the living — has become a proud tradition. Continue Reading These Wicked Dia De Los Read More
