BROADCASTS.com

Each week on our sister podcast, Read Me a Poem, Amanda Holmes reads suggestions from listeners around the world. Recently, a listener requested a longer work by the poet Muriel Rukeyser, whose poetry is not as widely known 40 years after her death as it should be. Holmes joins us this week to discuss why Rukeyser\u2019s work speaks to her and then to read the long poem cycle \u201cLetter to the Front,\u201d written in 1944.

Go beyond the episode:

• Listen to Amanda Holmes each week on the Read Me a Poem podcast
• Read \u201cLetter to the Front\u201d by Muriel Rukeyser
• Try not to chuckle as Rukeyser reads her poem \u201cWaiting for Icarus,\u201d written from the perspective of the ill-fated man\u2019s wife
• The Book of the Dead (1938), reissued in 2018 by West Virginia University Press, was written in response to the 1931 Hawks Nest Tunnel Disaster, in which hundreds of miners, mostly Black, died of silicosis. Rukeyser combined her own observations with trial testimony from the surviving miners\u2019 lawsuit against their employer.
• \u201cIn moments of desperation, a favorite poem has resurfaced lately, sometimes on Twitter and sometimes in memory,\u201d writes Sam Huber in The Paris Review, of Rukeyser\u2019s \u201cPoem\u201d from 1968 that begins \u201cI lived in the first century of world wars\u201d

Tune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek. Follow us on Twitter @TheAmScho or on Facebook.

Subscribe: iTunes \u2022 Feedburner \u2022 Stitcher \u2022 Google Play \u2022 Acast

Have suggestions for projects you\u2019d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.