Literary figures/poets

The poet describes his new book — about the death of his father and the birth of his son — as having a blues sensibility. "There are moments of humor even in the sorrow," he says.

Blanco, who read his poem "One Today" at Obama's second inauguration, is the first immigrant, Lation and openly gay poet chosen to read at an inauguration.

The 83-year-old former poet laureate reflects on how life has changed as he's grown older. "My body causes me trouble when I cross the room, but when I am sitting down writing, I am in my heaven — my old heaven," he says.

"Poetry holds the knowledge that we are alive and that we know we're going to die," poet Marie Howe tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. One of Howe's most famous poems, "What the Living Do," was recently included in The Penguin Anthology of 20th-Century American Poetry.

In a new memoir, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Natasha Trethewey revisits her own memories of the Gulf Coast region, and details how members of her family worked to rebuild their lives after the storm. She asks how the identity of the Gulf will be remembered — and how the region's stories will be told.

The former U.S. poet laureate explains his admiration for Emily Dickinson -- and shares some of his favorite Dickinson poems. Collins says her words have a "sheer, untouchable originality."

Lyndall Gordon's Lives Like Loaded Guns explores the family secrets of the reclusive 19th-century poet. Gordon theorizes that Dickinson may have been epileptic, and describes the cult-generational family feud over the posthumous publication of the poet's work.

Poet Jehanne Dubrow shares several poems from her third poetry collection, Stateside, about her experience as a Navy wife, trying to understand her own life while waiting for her spouse to return from war.

Robert Hass, the former poet laureate of the United States, explores one of Walt Whitman's most iconic poems, Song of Myself — and shares his opinion about why the poem still resonates 155 years after it was written.

The former poet laureate reflects on his brother's passing in the new poem "August Notebook: A Death." The elegy is included in Hass' new collection, The Apple Trees at Olema, which includes material from his first five works — as well as new poems on the art of storytelling and personal relations in a violent world.