9 min listen
Natasha Trethewey — Miscegenation
FromPoetry Unbound
ratings:
Length:
11 minutes
Released:
Oct 9, 2020
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
Were you born during a time when laws were different? What impact did those laws have on you? In this poem, Natasha Trethewey recalls the story of how her parents crossed state lines to wed because Mississippi forbade interracial marriage at the time. It is written in the form of a ghazal, with birth and belonging, names and death coming together.Natasha Trethewey served as U.S. Poet Laureate from 2012-2014. She is the author of a memoir, Memorial Drive, and five collections of poetry including Monument and Native Guard, for which she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Released:
Oct 9, 2020
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
Ross Gay — Ode to Buttoning and Unbuttoning My Shirt: Ross Gay’s poem “Ode to Buttoning and Unbuttoning My Shirt” uses an everyday task to examine what is made and unmade in small moments. He imagines his fingers opening and closing things, like buttons, the eyes of a dead person, relationships. In doing so, the poem asks us to simply pay attention, today, to what we’re doing with our hands — to understand them as intimate pathways into the stories of our bodies and the stories of our lives. A question to reflect on after you listen: What have you done with your hands today? What are you opening? What are you closing? by Poetry Unbound