ROBERT BLY: A Thousand Years of Joy (2015)

 

Bly was arguably the leading champion of poetry for the last half century. His boundless curiosity and belief that poetry matters in the life of the nation has often put him on the front lines of cultural and political debate. The bestselling author of Iron John, and winner of numerous awards for his own poetry, Bly also introduced the work of Rumi, Hafez, Neruda, Lorca, Mirabai and others to English speakers for the first time. Featuring John Densmore, Louise Erdrich, Martin Shaw, Gary Snyder, Gioia Timpanelli, Donald Hall, Jane Hirshfield, Mark Rylance, Tracy K. Smith, Martin Sheen, and others. Emmy-award winner. Broadcasted on PBS and a festival favorite. Produced and Directed by Haydn Reiss

Francis Webb Reads from his Collected Poems

 

A compilation of 10 poems read by legendary Australian poet Francis Webb (1925 - 73), recorded in the early 1970s by the National Library and University of Queensland Press and reproduced, with permission, in digital format for the first time with accompanying text. Poet and Webb scholar Dr Toby Davidson from Macquarie University provides a brief foreword and background notes at the end.

Alice Walker - interviewed by Henry Lyman for Poems to a Listener (1984 series)

 

Alice Walker, reading from Good Night, Willie Lee and other collections, gives us poems about her childhood in rural Georgia, her travels in Africa, and her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. She describes her baptism in a local creek: “It was just such an interesting thing to go down to the creek beautifully dressed in white, with all the other people dressed in white, and be held by the people of the community.”

Denise Levertov - interviewed by Henry Lyman for Poems to a Listener (1984 series)

 

Reading from Candles in Babylon, Denise Levertov discusses the threat of nuclear war and its psychological effect on adults and on children: “I’ve heard of a child, who, when asked what he was going to do when he grew up, said, ‘But I’m not going to grow up.’”

Seamus Heaney - interviewed by Henry Lyman for Poems to a Listener (1983 series), Part Two

 

In this continued reading and conversation Heaney talks about the political tensions between Protestants and Catholics, as well as the more friendly relations he observed in the countryside: “The individual Protestant farmer in your own district was your neighbor, rather than your enemy.”

Seamus Heaney - interviewed by Henry Lyman for Poems to a Listener (1983 series), Part One

 

Reading from Poems 1965-1975 and Field Work, Seamus Heaney, recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize for Literature, speaks of the landscape of Northern Ireland, the farm where he grew up, and the workers and craftsmen of the neighborhood: “The poet has to be a voice-box for something that is in the land and in the people.”

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Seamus Heaney speaking about Gaelic and the Irish landscape

 

3 Poems by Strider Marcus Jones ON BBC RADIO LANCASHIRE -Upload with Joel Mitchell on 12/03/2026

 

A Life in Study: Robert Lowell

 

Strider Marcus Jones Poet - Lothlorien: SEAMUS HEANEY - R.I.P. New Poem by Strider Marcus ...

Strider Marcus Jones Poet - Lothlorien: SEAMUS HEANEY - R.I.P. New Poem by Strider Marcus ...: SEAMUS HEANEY even his hair and clothes were poetic- the strands and fibres blowing and smelling phrasing words digging up r...

5 Poems by Diane Di Prima

 

5 Poems by Gary Snyder

 

5 Poems by Dudley Randall

 

5 POEMS BY STANLEY KUNITZ

 

5 Poems by Robin Blaser

 

5 Poems by Madeline Gleason

 

5 poems by James Laughlin

 

Audre Lorde reads Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic As Power (FULL Updated)

 

5 poems by Audre Lorde

 

5 Poems by Gregory Corso

 

5 Poems by Jack Spicer

 

5 Poems by Ted Berrigan

 

5 Poems by Etheridge Knight

 

5 poems by Gwendolyn Brooks

 

R.S. Thomas in 1995