New Letters - On the Air - Audio feed

This program pays tribute to the past American voices of feminist poets from the last century, who opened doors at publishing houses for the vast numbers of talented women writers today. Listen to excerpts from Pulitzer Prize winners Maxine Kumin (1925-2014) and Carolyn Kizer (1925-2014), as well as MacArthur "genius" fellow Adrienne Rich (1929-2012). We'll also list...

English writer Rupert Thomson discusses his eleventh novel, Never Anyone But You, that was shortlisted for the 2018 American Library in Paris Book Award. It explores the true love story of two lesbians in early 20th century France. Discover the history of artists Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, who resisted fascism and dealt with men...

In part two of our conversation with poet Ellen Bass, she discusses how, after being married and having two children, she came to discover another part of her sexuality and committed to a more than three-decade relationship with her now wife. She also reminisces on the mentorship she received from the late poet Anne Sexton and the co-founder of The Feminist Press, Florence Howe, and talks about the premier anthology that she and Howe worked on called No More Masks! An Anthology of Twentie...

Cave Canem Fellow Marcus Jackson reads from his debut poetry collection, Neighborhood Register and his 2018 book, Pardon My Heart. Jackson, an Ohio native who teaches in the MFA program at The Ohio State University, discusses his writing that touches on themes of love, racial identity, and family, p...

Glenn North, the inaugural Poet Laureate of the 18th and Vine Historic Jazz District, shares passages from his 2015 book City of Song (due to be re-released in 2019 by Spartan Press). Excerpted from the Kansas City Public Library's 2017 program,...

We turn to our extensive archive to present this look back at the legacy of the legendary poet Gwendolyn Brooks. The first African-American to win a Pulitzer Prize for her 1949 poetry collection, Annie Allen, Brooks went on to influence generations of poets. In this compilation made from a 1984 program and parts 1 and 2 of a 1988 interview, Brooks read...

In the second half of this interview, Patricia Smith, a 2017 National Endowment for the Arts fellow, reads from her book Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah, the 2014 winner of the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize and the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt Award. Smith also shares a poem from her earlier National Poetry Series Award-winning collection, ...

Michigan native Marcus Wicker talks about how his poetry has progressed since his early days with poetry slams and reads from the 2011 National Poetry Series winning collection, Maybe the Saddest Thing, a finalist for the NAACP Image Award for Poetry. He reveals why music and pop culture subject matter, ranging from Flavor Flav to Bruce Lee, appear so much...

Patricia Smith is the author of seven poetry books and a four-time National Poetry Slam Champion, the most successful poet in the competition's history. In part one of this conversation, she reads from her recent book, Incendiary Art, 2018 winner of an NAACP Image Award and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and discusses the why she chose to write so much about the late Emmett Till, who was killed ...

Poets Hadara Bar-Nadav and Kathryn Nuernberger, who were both chosen as 2017 NEA Literary Fellows, discuss their recent collections along with their origins and influences, and talk about how dreaming affects their poetry. Bar-Nadav, co-editor of the textbook Writing Poems, teaches English and Creative Writing at the University of Missouri–Kans...

A three-time Georgia Author of the Year for poetry, Stephen Corey is the editor of the National Magazine Award-winning, The Georgia Review. He talks about his literary life and reads from his 2017 book, Startled at the Big Sound: Essays Personal, Literary, and Cultural. The husband of a hos...

Guggenheim Fellow, licensed psychotherapist, and author of over a dozen poetry books, Charles Harper Webb reads from his 2016 essay collection, A Million MFAs Are Not Enough. The English professor at California State University advocates for more humor and accessibility within the poetry world. He also shares poems from his more recent collection,...

George Saunders, the renowned short story writer, talks about his debut novel, Lincoln in the Bardo, winner of Britain's Man Booker Prize for best novel written in English in 2017. He discusses his approach to this story, which began two decades before when he read about Abraham Lincoln's grief over the loss of his son, Willie, and how he made visits to the crypt to ...

In part one of this conversation, Arab-American poet Naomi Shihab Nye, whose numerous books of poetry, essays and stories have delighted children and adults alike, reads from her book, Tender Spot, including her poem "Famous" that was turned into a picture book in 2015. She also talks about her award-winning novel, ...

A holiday favorite, this highly anthologized short story is read by the late author Grace Paley. "The Loudest Voice" is an amusing tale about a little Jewish girl, chosen to play the lead in her school's Christmas pageant, and her family's reactions. Despite the story's popularity, Grace Paley's 1998 reading of it for New Letters on the Air was the first ever recorded. Programs with Grace Paley from 1991 and ...