Poetic License

April is National Poetry Month, and what better way to celebrate than to hear poets reading their own poems. Each day in April, the Bowdoin Library will share one reading at a display in H-L and on this web site. May you find comfort, resilience, enchantment, and connection through our offerings.

As we celebrate poets and poetry, we also express our esteem and gratitude for the organizations who have made recordings of poetry readings freely available for us to listen to, including the On Being Project, the Academy of American Poets, the Poetry Foundation, lyrikline, From the Fishouse, Poetry Out Loud, Open Culture, the Library of Congress, Internet Archive, iBiblio, BBC, and more.

National Poetry Month is sponsored by the Academy of American Poets, and 2021 marks the 25^th anniversary of the event.

Questions? Please contact Erin Valentino.

April 30 “Breaking Free,” written and read by Stuart Kestenbaum (1953- ), the Poet Laureate of Maine. From House of Thanksgiving (Deerbrook Editions, 2003). Video courtesy of the Academy of American Poets.	Watch
April 29 “Spinster,” written and read by Sylvia Plath (1932-1963). From The Collected Poems (Harper & Row, 1981). Audio courtesy of BBC.	Listen
April 28 “The New Decade,” written and read by Hieu Minh Nguyen. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on January 4, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets. Audio courtesy of Poedtry Foundation.	Listen
April 27 “The Naming of Cats,” writted and read by T S. Eliot (1888-1965). From Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (Harcourt, Brace, 1939). Audio courtesy of Poets Reading Poetry.	Listen
April 26 “Quarantine,” written and read by Eavan Boland (1944-2020). Boland taught at Bowdoin as a Visiting Professor; the College also awarded the poet an Honorary Doctor of Letters degree in 2004. Originally published in Code (Carcanet, 2001). Video courtesy of PBS Newshour.	Watch
April 25 “How to Triumph Like a Girl,” written and read by Ada Limón (1976- ). From Bright Dead Things (Milkweed Editions, 2015).
April 24 “Design in America,” written and read by Betsy Scholl (1945- ). From Late Psalm (University of Wisconsin Press, 2004). Audio courtesy of From the Fishouse: an Audio Archive of Emerging Poets.
April 23 “Maine Coast,” written and read by Lillian-Yvonne Bertram. Featured in PoetryNow, 2016. Audio couertesy of Poetry Foundation.
April 22 “Eagle Poem,” written and read by U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo (1951- ). From In Mad Love and War. (Wesleyan, 1990). Audio courtesy of Poetry Foundation.
April 21 “Personal Helicon,” written and read by Seamus Heaney (1939-2013 ). First published in Death of a Naturalist in 1966. Audio courtesy of iBiblio.
April 20 “Double Dutch,” written and read by Gregory Pardlo (1968- ). First published in the Cave Canem Anthology, 2001. Audio courtesy of From the Fishouse: an Audio Archive of Emerging Poets.
April 19 “The Song of the Old Mother,” written and read by William Butler Yeats (1865-1939). Originally published in The Wind Among the Reeds (E. Mathews, 1899). Audio courtesy of lyrikline.
April 18 “Kindness,” written and read by Naomi Shihab Nye (1952- ). From Words Under the Words: Selected Poems (Eight Mountain Press, 1995). Audio courtesy of The On Being Project.
April 17 “How to Continue,” written and read by John Ashbery (1927-2017). From Notes from the Air: Selected Later Poems (Ecco, 2007). Audio courtesy of Poetry Foundation.
April 16 “Flamingo Watching,” written and read by Kay Ryan (1945- ). From Flamingo Watching: Poems (Copper Beech Press, 1994). Audio courtesy of Poetry Foundation.
April 15 “Elegy for My Sadness,” written ands read by Chen Chen (1989- ). From When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (BOA Editions, 2017). Audio courtesy of From the Fishouse: an Audio Archive of Emerging Poets.
April 14 “To Elsie,” written and read by William Carlos Williams (1883-1963). From The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams, Volume I, 1909-1939 (New Directions, 1939). Audio courtesy of Poetry Foundation.
April 13 “Queerodactyl,” written and read by Roy G. Guzmán. Originally published in Poetry Magazine (November 2017). Audio courtesy of Poetry Foundation.
April 12 “The Peace of Wild Things,” written and ready by Wendell Berry (1934- ). From The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry (Counterpoint, 2009). Audio courtesy of The On Being Project.
April 11 “Stardate Number 18628.190,” written and read by Nikki Giovanni (1943- ). From The Selected Poems of Nikki Giovanni (William Morrow, 1996). Audio courtesy of The On Being Project.
April 10 “Como Tú / Like You / Like Me,” written and read by Richard Blanco (1968- ). From How to Love a Country. (Beacon Press, 2019). Audio courtesy of The On Being Project.
April 9 “Aimless Love,” written and read by Billy Collins (1941- ). From Aimless Love: New and Selected Poems (Random House, 2013). Audio courtesy of lyrikline.
April 8 “[as freedom is a breakfastfood],” written and read by e.e. cummings (1894-1962). From Complete poems, 1904-1962 (Liveright, 1994). Audio courtesy of Poetry Foundation.
April 7 “We Real Cool,” written and read by Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000). From The Bean Eaters (Harpers, 1960). Audio courtesy of Poets.org.	Listen
April 6 “At Popham Beach,” written by Thorpe Moeckel (1971- ) and read by him at Bowdoin College in September of 2008. Originally published in Poetry Magazine, May 2002. Audio courtesy of From the Fishhouse: an Audio Archive of Emerging Poets.
April 5 “Wild Geese,” written and read by Mary Oliver (1935-2019). From Dreamwork (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1986). Audio courtesy of The On Being Project.
April 4 “Freedom,” written by Tyehimba Jess (1965- ) and read by him at Bowdoin College in April of 2005. Originally published in Ploughshares in 2002. Audio courtesy of From the Fishouse: an Audio Archive of Emerging Poets.
April 3 “spring song,” written and read by Lucille Clifton (1936-2010). From Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir (BOA Editions Ltd., 1980). Audio courtesy of The Poetry Foundation.
April 2 “Wade in the Water,” written and read by Tracy K. Smith (1972- ). From Wade in the Water: Poems (Graywolf Press, 2018). Smith was named U.S. Poet Laureate in 2017. Audio courtesy of The On Being Project.
April 1 “Headfirst,” written and read by Ocean Vuong (1988- ). From Night Sky with Exit Wounds (Copper Canyon Press, 2016). Audio courtesy of The On Being Project.