spoken word

Let Wendell Berry and Pádraig Ó Tuama Read Poetry to You

Since we discovered the remarkable effects of reading a poem every morning several years ago, we’ve looked for ways to weave poetry more widely into our life. We found a trove of dazzlers to listen to anywhere.

Amanda Gorman’s Mantra, Why Using Your Voice is a Political Choice + Her Poem for the Pandemic

Twenty-two year-old National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman’s reading of her poem The Hill We Climb at President Biden’s Inauguration was like big bright sun rising on the day. Her remarkable TedEx talk is full of fierce wisdom, and poetry unto itself…

The Slowdown: A 5-Minute Literary Once-a Day Multivitamin for the Soul

The Slowdown, a daily 5-minute long podcast from U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith, is remarkable in its power to truly slow down time and transport you OUT of the busy mulit-tasking present.

Reg E. Cathey’s Goodbye Love Song, in His Own Beautiful Voice

We are heartbroken that the great Reg E. Cathey passed away. The Goodbye Love Song he recorded for Improvised Life in 2009 resonates all the more deeply with the magic of his voice and words.

Living in the Tender Gravity of Kindness (Naomi Shihab Nye + Jenny Holzer)

Artist Jenny Holzer’s words arranged on a marquis of a movie theater in Chicago is the image that we thought of as we read Kindness, Naomi Shihab Nye’s revelatory poem…

Morning Practice: Reading a Poem…..Again

For some time, our morning practice, before email or anthing digital, has been to read a poem aloud (sometimes with a friend). Recently, we decided to try reading the same poem every morning for a week. We discovered that each day, we’d hear it differently and find something new in those same few lines, as…

Morning Poem: Walt Whitman Read to You + Animated

(Video link here.) London-based animator Sophie Koko Gate’s chose the 2nd stanza of Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself to animate in her cool 2 minute video. You can read along below. What we like best about the little video is having the poem read to us, with a jazzy beat and its wonderful last two lines.