Poetry

Mark Halliday returns to Fresh Air to recite two of his poems, about families, nostalgia, music, and memory.

Jazz critic Ken Tucker reviews the Jack Kerouac Collection, a box set featuring Kerouac's poetry readings set to musical accompaniment is by Steve Allen, Al Cohn, and Zoot Sims. Fans will appreciate the included booklet, which features photographs and essays about the poet's life and career.

The writer, known for her ongoing series of autobiographies, is one of this country's leading black female poets. She talks with Fresh Air guest host Marty Moss-Coane about how she switches between prose and poetry, and the formal, respectful modes of communication she prefers in the classroom and other professional contexts -- which Angelou says is an integral part of the African American community.

Poet and teacher Frank Bidart. His new collection of poems is "In the Western Night, Collected Poems 1965-90." It's published by Farrar Straus & Giroux.

Poet Mark Halliday reads two of his poems.

Poet VIikram Seth (VICK-ram SATE) He was born in India and has lived in England, China and the U.S. He's just completed his first novel -- a novel written in verse, "The Golden Gate" (published by Knopf). David Rieff of "Vanity Fair" says of the book, "At once a bittersweet love story, a wickedly funny novel of manners and an unsentimental meditation on mortality and the nuclear abyss."

Poet Mark Halliday reads two new poems.

Poet Mark Halliday joins us again to read a poem.

Cuban-born poet Heberto Padilla (air-BARE-toe puh-DEE-uh). He was a friend of Castro and an early supporter of the revolution in Cuba. But later he became disillusioned and was imprisoned by Castro as a counter-revolutionary in 1971. He left Cuba in 1980 and has been living and teaching in the U.S. He has a new memoir, "Self Portrait of the Other," published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.

Poet Mark Halliday reads his poem "Tonette" about one of life's lessons that he learned via the tonette.

Poet, critic and translator Robert Hass. He won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award for his first volume of poetry, "Field Guide," published in 1973. He translated, with poet Robert Pinsky, Czeslaw Milosz's "The Separate Notebooks." His essays have appeared in The New York Review of Books, The New Republic, Antaeus, and Salmagundi. Many of those essays are collected in his book, "Twentieth Century Pleasures." Hass's new book, "Human Wishes," mixes verse, prose poems. and essays.

Poet Michael Ryan. Ryan's poems have earned him a Guggenheim Fellowship and a nomination for the National Book Award. He's just released his third collection of poems, called "God Hunger."

Poet Mark Halliday reads two poems about the passage of time.

Poet Mark Halliday reads one of his works.

Poet and essayist June Jordan. In her poems and political essays, she addresses issues of racism, oppression and dispossession. She was born in Harlem and grew up in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn. She currently teaches English at the University of California at Berkeley.

Book critic John Leonard reviews a new biography of Allan Ginsberg.

Egyptian-born poet Gregory Djanikian (ja-NIK-ee-ann) reads a poem about his early memories of moving to America and starting school.

Poet Li-Young Lee. He was born into a family of political refugees from China. They traveled throughout Asia for years to escape persecution. In the mid-60's his family moved to Pennsylvania. Lee's poems reflect his struggle with his Chinese heritage - a heritage to which he is bound but in which he never lived. His poems also reflect Lee's attempt to come to terms with the powerful and mythic figure of his father, who was alternately imprisoned and revered for his beliefs.

Poet Mark Halliday reads a short work titled "Fort Brag." The poem is an ode to people who are absolutely certain about most everything. Halliday, an English professor at the University of Pennsylvania, is a regular contributor to Fresh Air.

Poet Mark Halliday reads one his latest works. Halliday, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, has read several of his poems on Fresh Air.