Lyric Life Podcast
1) Ellen Bass, "How To Apologize"
I found this poem while I was seeing my dad through his death. I thought of it a lot during those awful months. I thought about what I needed to apologize for. I thought about what he needed to apolog...Show More
2) Bernadette Mayer, "[Sonnet] You jerk you didn't call me up"
How can something published in 1968 be so 2021?It can because it's a lyric poem by Bernadette Mayer, a poet whose work may well define what I think is great about lyric poetry.Join me, Mark Scarbrough...Show More
3) Emily Dickinson's Poem #1108 ("The Bustle in a House")
I'm back from a long hiatus. I didn't mean to go on one. My dad died. Or as I keep saying, he went over a cliff and took me with him.I wanted to record this podcast episode because it's about a poem I...Show More
4) Hayley Mitchell Haugen, "Would You Please Stop Whistling, Please?"
A warning, first off: this lyric poem has language, imagery, and incidents that are difficult to bear. If you have children with you, you'll want to save this episode for another time.Hayley Mitchell ...Show More
5) Caitlin Seida, "Hope Is Not A Bird, Emily, It's A Sewer Rat"
It takes a brave writer to lead the charge against Emily Dickinson. Especially in my books! You know how much I love Dickinson. But I may love Caitlin Seida's riff off a famous Dickinson poem just as ...Show More
6) Donna Hilbert, "Rosemary"
Here's a poem that's deceptively small. It's actually a sonnet, broken into an octet and a sestet. And it does what sonnets do best: it turns the world strange.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I explore D...Show More
7) Ted Kooser, "The Old People"
Ted Kooser has been called part of the "Midwestern poetry revival" in the U.S., his poems plainsong truth-telling that somehow avoid the pitfalls (and pratfalls?) of academic poetry.But this poem, "Th...Show More
8) Emily Dickinson, Poem #256 ("The Robin's my Criterion for Tune")
I've just come off teaching Emily Dickinson's poetry in two-hour seminar segments over eight weeks--and her art has done to me what it always does to me: It's broken my brain.Join me, Mark Scarbrough,...Show More
9) Tamara Madison, "What Now Is Like"
Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I explore this poem from a working poet, Tamara Madison: "What Now Is Like."It's a gentle exploration of the experience of the "now," the only way it can be experienced, i...Show More
10) Camille T. Dungy, "Let Me"
Dungy's magnificent poem, "Let me," published just this month in The New Yorker (April, 2021) is a terrifying glimpse into the problem of living in the United States: everything's real and everything'...Show More