Prageeta Sharma selects recordings by poets who shaped her as a writer, and who have also shaped the landscape of contemporary American poetry by blending a sense of intimacy with direct address. She shares Ai inhabiting a persona that mixes sass and ancient knowledge (“Twenty-Year Marriage”), Michael S. Harper offering a testament spoken to rather than about a historical figure (“Dear John, Dear Coltrane”), and C.D. Wright creating doubleness in a love poem that melds closeness and estrangement ("Floating Trees"). Sharma closes with “A One Won,” a poem from her most recent collection.

Find the full recordings of Ai, Harper, and Wright reading for the Poetry Center on Voca:
Ai (September 13, 1972)
Michael S. Harper (April 4, 1973)
C.D. Wright (September 14, 2000)

Full transcripts of every episode are available on Buzzsprout. Look for the transcript tab under each episode.

Voca is now fully captioned, with interactive transcripts and captions available for all readings! Read more about the project here, or try out this new feature by visiting Voca.

Lawrence-Minh Bùi Davis curates poems that illuminate characteristics of refugee poetics. He introduces Mai Der Vang on the displacement of the self (“Dear Exile”), Monica Sok on the contradictions inherent in being a refugee in the nation that caused the initial wound (“Americans Dancing in the Heart of Darkness”), and Ocean Vuong on the desire for belonging that can never be fulfilled (“Of Thee I Sing”). Davis closes with an untitled poem from his novel-in-progress, expressing defiance against loss of agency.

Watch the full recordings of Vang, Sok, and Vuong reading for the Poetry Center on Voca:
Mai Der Vang (August 11, 2022)
Monica Sok (February 13, 2020)
Ocean Vuong (April 6, 2017)

Full transcripts of every episode are available on Buzzsprout. Look for the transcript tab under each episode.

Voca is now fully captioned, with interactive transcripts and captions available for all readings! Read more about the project here, or try out this new feature by visiting Voca.

Philip Metres introduces poems that speak to the enduring work of poetry to carry us toward life. He shares W.S. Merwin reflecting on how we not only survive but live (“The River of Bees”), William Stafford invoking the inner journeys we each must take (“Peace Walk”), and Natalie Diaz demonstrating the way poetry can hold us amidst pain (“My Brother at 3 A.M.”). Metres closes with his poem “To Go On One’s Way,” after the Aramaic word “yazil.”

Find the full recordings of Merwin, Stafford, and Diaz reading for the Poetry Center on Voca:
W.S. Merwin (January 17, 1990)
William Stafford (February 21, 1968)
Natalie Diaz (September 5, 2013)

Full transcripts of every episode are available on Buzzsprout. Look for the transcript tab under each episode.

Voca is now fully captioned, with interactive transcripts and captions available for all readings! Read more about the project here, or try out this new feature by visiting Voca.

July Westhale shares poems that unfold into moments of clarity and questioning. They introduce Carl Phillips’ reflection on truth (“Continuous Until We Stop”), Linda Gregg’s complex and hard-won simplicity (“What If the World Stays Far Off”), and Fanny Howe’s depiction of the human experience underscored by the natural world (“At Baron’s Court”). Westhale closes with a new poem, “I’m Fine, Thanks."

Find the full recordings of Phillips, Gregg, and Howe reading for the Poetry Center on Voca:
Carl Phillips (November 1, 2012)
Linda Gregg (April 22, 1981)
Fanny Howe (April 26, 2012)

You can also enjoy a recording of Westhale reading for the Poetry Center as our summer resident in 2018.

Full transcripts of every episode are available on Buzzsprout. Look for the transcript tab under each episode.

Voca is now fully captioned, with interactive transcripts and captions available for all readings! Read more about the project here, or try out this new feature by visiting Voca.

Radical Reversal is a program that installs performance and recording spaces in detention centers and correctional facilities where they conduct poetry workshops, seminars in music and music production, readings, and performances. Following up on a bonus episode from April 2023, Radical Reversal co-founder Randall Horton introduces us to poetry and music from five youth writers and performers at Jefferson County Youth Detention Center in Birmingham, Alabama.

To watch readings by poets whose work engages with the crisis of mass incarceration in the US, check out Voca for recordings from the Poetry Center's Art for Justice series.

Full transcripts of every episode are available on Buzzsprout. Look for the transcript tab under each episode.

Voca is now fully captioned, with interactive transcripts and captions available for all readings! Read more about the project here, or try out this new feature by visiting Voca.

Samyak Shertok curates poems that shift between image and narrative, between sound, silence, and simile as they create something wholly new. He introduces Joy Harjo testing the line between being an eyewitness and witnessing to (“Deer Dancer”), Li-Young Lee looking for the beloved everywhere (“Echo and Shadow”), and John Murillo braiding a complex tapestry from memory and remembering (“Upon Reading That Eric Dolphy Transcribed Even the Calls of Certain Species of Birds,”). To close, Shertok invites us to walk through the portals of his poem “One Hundred and Eight Doors.”

You can find the full recordings of Harjo, Lee, and Murillo on Voca:
Joy Harjo (September 16, 1987)
Li-Young Lee (September 10, 2003)
John Murillo (March 14, 2024)

Full transcripts of every episode are available on Buzzsprout. Look for the transcript tab under each episode.

Voca is now fully captioned, with interactive transcripts and captions available for all readings! Read more about the project here, or try out this new feature by visiting Voca.

Dawn Lundy Martin selects poems of urgency, tension, and devotion. She shares Daniel Borzutzky responding to massacres with a poem that must be written (“Written after a Massacre in the Year 2018”), francine j. harris negotiating what can be contained and what cannot (“in case”), and Ada Limón choosing astounding devotion ("State Bird"). Martin closes with an excerpt from “A Fable of the Regime,” which engages with the present, long moment of American history.

Watch the full recordings of Borzutzky, harris, and Limón on Voca:
Daniel Borzutzky (January 10, 2019)
francine j. harris (September 3, 2015)
Ada Limón (April 5, 2018)

You can also enjoy Lundy’s performance as part of Black Took Collective and her participation in a panel discussion at the Poetry Center, part of the Poetry Off the Page Symposium from 2012.

Full transcripts of every episode are available on Buzzsprout. Look for the transcript tab under each episode.

Voca is now fully captioned, with interactive transcripts and captions available for all readings! Read more about the project here, or try out this new feature by visiting Voca.

Leila Chatti chooses poems illuminated by a heart left often to life here on Earth. She introduces us to Linda Gregg’s fierce and incandescent honesty (“There She Is”), Lucille Clifton’s embrace of lightness amidst struggle (“sorrows”), and Jane Hirshfield’s distillation of silence and attention (“The World Loved by Moonlight”). To close, Chatti reads her poem “I went out to hear”—an affirmation for choosing a life that includes both beauty and pain.

Find the full recordings of Gregg, Clifton, and Hirshfield on Voca:
Linda Gregg (April 22, 1981)
Lucille Clifton (November 1, 2007)
Jane Hirshfield (November 29, 1995)

Full transcripts of every episode are available on Buzzsprout. Look for the transcript tab under each episode.

Voca is now fully captioned, with interactive transcripts and captions available for all readings! Read more about the project here, or try out this new feature by visiting Voca.