Poems for Company
On this theme-based show, host Brian Dillon reads and comments on poems from the ancient world to the present. Topics include Unlived Lives, Inanimate Objects, Swimming, Advice, and Unrequited love, among many others.
- Update frequency
- every 30 days
- Average duration
- 28 minutes
- Episodes
- 32
- Years Active
- 2022 - 2025
Poems for Company – August 25th, 2025
“Wandering and Roving”: When you wander in the woods, how do you decide which way to go when you arrive at a fork in your path? The first of today’s poems offers a playful response to that question,…
00:29:00 |
Mon 25 Aug 2025
Poems for Company – July 28th, 2025
“Exile and Return”: What is it like to try to enter and exit Middle Eastern countries, especially Palestine? Today’s poems offer glimpses, even before the most recent spasm of violence that ripped i…
00:28:59 |
Mon 28 Jul 2025
Poems for Company – June 23rd, 2025
“One Word”: The poems on today’s show implicitly urge us to consider how strange language is when we examine it up close. Each of today’s poems puzzle over an individual word. Billy Collins, “Tensi…
00:29:00 |
Mon 23 Jun 2025
Poems for Company – May 26th, 2025
“Three Controversial Musicians”: Today’s three poems spotlight three individuals known for their musical talents, as well as the controversy they provoked. Naomi Shihab Nye, “Cross That Line,” from …
00:28:59 |
Mon 26 May 2025
Poems for Company – April 28th, 2025
“Gifts”: One poet recalls her complex strategies as a teen gift-giver, a second recalls the gift his parents bestowed on him when he was eleven and about to move away from home, and the third imagine…
00:29:00 |
Mon 28 Apr 2025
Poems for Company – March 24th, 2025
“A Redwood, an Ancient Orchard, a Sequoia”: Do you have a favorite tree you pay special attention to when you take a routine walk? Is it older than you? We project so many attributes on to trees, i…
00:28:59 |
Mon 24 Mar 2025
Poems for Company – February 24th, 2025
“Running on Empathy”: Three authors display various degrees of empathy in their depictions of Abraham Lincoln. Walt Whitman, prose passages from Specimen Days, and “O Captain! My Captain.” Kathleen…
00:29:00 |
Wed 12 Mar 2025
Poems for Company – January 27th, 2025
“Mysterious Encounters”: Three sing-songy poems are featured on today’s episode. All three depict encounters between two individuals: all three resist our efforts to make total sense of their motive…
00:29:00 |
Mon 27 Jan 2025
Poems for Company – October 28th, 2024
“Children Thinking”: This episode features the voices of children–filtered through adult poets–in three poems that express a variety of insights. These poems may prompt you to wonder, did you once t…
00:29:00 |
Mon 28 Oct 2024
Poems for Company – September 23rd, 2024
“Desk Jobs”: Did you ever have a job you abruptly quit soon after it began? Why did you do that? The first three lines of our first poem refer to a job the speaker quit after just one shift. The n…
00:28:59 |
Mon 23 Sep 2024
Poems for Company August 26, 2024
“Manual Labor”: What do you remember from your first paid job? Did you develop any work-habits that you carried into adulthood? From your twenties on, has much of your identity been shaped by your wo…
00:29:02 |
Mon 26 Aug 2024
Poems for Company – July 22nd, 2024
“Swimming”: We dive in with two action-packed excerpts from ancient poetic narratives. Both depict heroic swimmers moving through dangerous waters. This episode concludes with a contemporary American…
00:28:59 |
Mon 22 Jul 2024
Poems for Company – June 24th, 2024
“Meta-Verse”: The four poems on this episode make a virtue out of being self-conscious. Each poem comments on the very poem we’re reading. The poem pulls back the curtain and reveals the composing …
00:28:58 |
Mon 24 Jun 2024
Poems for Company – May 27th, 2024
“Where Is My Home?” (Part 2): The four poems on this episode address this question from a variety of perspectives: home as an imaginary place; home valued for the quality of one’s neighbors; home as …
00:28:59 |
Mon 27 May 2024
Poems for Company – April 22nd, 2024
“Where Is My Home?”: Do you carry in your mind images of a former landscape you lived in, an extended area you called home? The first poem is spoken in the voice of Robinson Crusoe as a old man back…
00:29:00 |
Mon 22 Apr 2024
Poems for Company – February 26th, 2024
“Frederick and Anna Murray Douglass”: Though Frederick Douglass grew up not knowing his exact birthdate and even uncertain just how old he was, historians presume he was born in February 1818. Dougl…
00:29:00 |
Mon 26 Feb 2024
Poems for Company – January 22nd, 2024
“Imagining Our Parents Before We Were Born”: What do you know about the life of either of your parents before you were born? The three contemporary poems featured on this episode suggest the poets k…
00:28:59 |
Mon 22 Jan 2024
Poems for Company – December 25th, 2023
“Some Horses, Some Oxen”: Four poems are featured on this show, three about horses and one about oxen. All of the horse poems tell us as much about the speaker as they do about the horses, and the f…
00:28:59 |
Mon 25 Dec 2023
Poems for Company – November 27th, 2023
“Responding to Loss”: All three poems in this episode reflect on the loss of a person, when loss is final. Perhaps one or more of these poems speak to feelings you have experienced but could not def…
00:28:59 |
Mon 27 Nov 2023
Poems for Company – October 23rd, 2023
“Civilians in the First World War”: All four poems on today’s episode focus on civilians in the First World War, particularly women: how were they affected? Jessie Pope, “War Girls.” Siegfried Sass…
00:29:00 |
Mon 23 Oct 2023
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