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Poetry Radio Project
Poetry can help us mark historical moments, pull us deeper into human experience and enrich our perspectives on news events and culture. So, The Story joins the Poetry Radio Project, a collaboration between the Poetry Foundation and American Public Media that stretches across several American Public Media programs. We'll collect our conversations with poets and the stories that inspire their work here.
Memory of Loss
Sean Nevin
Sean Nevin didn't have any kind of personal connection with Alzheimer's when he first began writing about memory. He and a fellow poet had an idea to go into assisted care facilities and see if they could use poetry to reconnect Alzheimer's patients to their memories. Then his own grandfather began struggling with dementia. Sean Nevin talks with Dick Gordon about how writing about memory for his book, "Oblivio Gate," became an obsession that was quite uncomfortable at times.
Paul Guest's Body of Poetry
Paul Guest
Paul Guest is an accomplished poet who has a number of books to his name. In his latest book, Paul writes about his disability for the first time. After finishing 6th grade, Paul got in a bicycle accident that broke his neck and left him paralyzed. Paul shares the story of his accident, and about how, despite his resistance, he took on the challenge of infusing details of his disability in his poems. Paul's latest book is titled My Index of Slightly Horrifying Knowledge.
Poems for Obama
Rachel Zucker
February 09, 2009: Poems for Obama
Rachel Zucker was on the phone with a friend the day before President Obama's inauguration, when the two poets had a eureka moment. They decided to find 100 poets who would sign up to write a poem for each of Obama's first 100 days in office. She says she grew more confident thinking of the poem Elizabeth Alexander read at the inauguration - and her sense that undertaking this project contributes, in a sense, to the days of hard work ahead for Barack Obama.
