The Daily Poem
An audio anthology of the best poetry ever written
- Update frequency
- every 2 days
- Average duration
- 7 minutes
- Episodes
- 984
- Years Active
- 2019 - 2025
Rhina P. Espaillat's "Gardening"
This week’s poems are arranged around the themes of retrospection and anniversaries in honor of the Close Reads Podcast celebrating its tenth year. Today, we have Rhina Espaillat turning over rich so…
Carole Boston Weatherford's "Sidewalk Chalk"
Today’s poem is a little hopscotch down memory lane. Happy reading.
Weatherford is author of over seventy books including fiction, non-fiction, and poetry inspired, she says, by “family stories, fadin…
Wendell Berry's "A Parting"
Today’s bittersweet poem glimpses the life of Arthur Rowanberry across time and beyond. Happy reading.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to …
Karina Borowicz's "September Tomatoes"
Karina Borowicz was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts. She earned a BA in history and Russian from the University of Massachusetts and an MFA from the University of New Hampshire. Borowicz spent fiv…
Robert Graves' "Epitaph on an Unfortunate Artist"
Today’s poem is a cautionary tale about achieving popular successes. Happy reading.
“Mark Ford summarized Graves’s ‘wholesale rejection of 20th-century civilization and complete submission to the capr…
William Wordsworth's "The Tables Turned"
Today’s poem is an invitation to an encounter with the Real. Happy reading.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit daily…
Vachel Lindsay's "Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight"
Today’s poem is neither the first nor last to mythologize America’s sixteenth president. What is it about Lincoln that makes him so attractive to artists of every succeeding generation? Happy reading…
Roger Woddis' "Ethics for Everyman"
Today’s poem–from British humorist Roger Woddis–is a witty-yet-withering sendup of double-morality. Happy reading.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or ge…
"Old English Riddle no. 26" (trans. Roy M. Liuzza)
Today’s poem comes from the largest surviving trove of Anglo Saxon poetry–the Exeter Book. Happy riddling!
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access…
Louise Imogen Guiney's "John Brown: A Paradox"
Louise Imogen Guiney is known for her lyrical, Old English-style poems that often recall the literary conventions of seventeenth-century English poetry. Informed by her religious faith, Guiney's work…
Robert Lowell's "July in Washington"
Happy 4th of July and happy reading!
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Juliana Horatia Ewing's "Garden Lore"
Juliana Horatia Ewing (August 3, 1841 – May 13, 1885) was an English writer of children's stories. Her writings display a sympathetic insight into children's lives, an admiration for things military,…
Tracy K. Smith’s “The Good Life”
Today’s poem is one of those perfect distillations of a concrete emotion. Happy reading.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes…
G. K. Chesterton’s “The Secret People”
Today’s poem is Chesterton’s ode to the silent majority. Happy reading.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoem…
John Donne’s “A Valediction Forbidding Mourning”
Today’s poem marks a very special day. Happy reading.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/s…
William Blake’s Introduction to Songs of Experience
Today’s poem, introducing the counterpart to “Songs of Innocence,” is a dialogue that immediately deepens the mood of the more “mature” lyrics that will follow. Happy reading.
This is a public episod…
John Keats’ “Happy is England”
Sweet is the home you leave. Happy reading.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Frost at Midnight"
Today’s poem is a somber, paternal retrospective from the Ancient Mariner poet. Happy reading.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus ep…
Lord Byron's "She Walks in Beauty"
Today’s poem kicks off a short trek through English poetry. Happy reading.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailyp…
Simon Curtis's "Satie, at the End of Term"
My friend Simon Curtis, who has died aged 70, was one of the small band of people who work tirelessly, for no pay and few thanks, to promote poetry. An excellent poet himself, he edited two magazines…