Literary figures/poets

Hall, who died on Saturday, wrote about farm work and his wife, poet Jane Kenyon, in the 1993 memoir Life Work. He and Kenyon spoke to Fresh Air in 1996, and Hall was interviewed again in '02 and '12.

Levine's work often reflected the hardships and dignity of manual labor. He died Feb. 14 in Fresno, Calif. He was 87. In 1991, Levine spoke with Terry Gross about his collection What Work Is.

Baraka was one of the key black literary voices of the 1960s. The political and social views that inspired his writing changed over the years, from his bohemian days as a young man in Greenwich Village to his later years as a Marxist. He spoke to Fresh Air's Terry Gross in 1986.

Landesman, a songwriter and poet who wrote the words to the jazz standard "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most," died on July 23. She was 83. Fresh Air remembers the iconoclastic lyricist with highlights from a 1988 interview.

During his lifetime, South African poet Dennis Brutus made incredible contributions to the fight against apartheid. Brutus died on December 26, 2009, after successfully battling segregation in athletics with global recognition. Fresh Air remembers the life and achievements of Brutus in this interview from 1986

This interview was originally broadcast on April 22, 1986.

Poet Sekou Sundiata died this week at age 58; the cause was heart failure. Sundiata, who taught literature at New York City's New School University for many years, was considered one of the fathers of the spoken-word movement. He wrote the plays Blessing the Boats, The Circle Unbroken is a Hard Bop, The Mystery of Love, Udu, and the 51st (dream) state. His albums include Longstoryshort and The Blue Oneness of Dreams. We remember him with excerpts from interviews that originally aired in May 1994, April 1997, and November 2002.

We remember the poet Kenneth Koch, who died Saturday.

Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai (ya-HOO-da AH-muh-kye, rhymes with pie) died Friday at the age of 76, and we feature a 1991 interview from the archives. Amichai was a celebrated poet whose subjects were love and loss, and more recently, aging and mortality. The New York Times wrote that he had a “gift for poeticizing the particular: the localized object or image in everyday life.” (originally aired 2/27/91)

We remember poet and author Denise Levertov who died on Saturday at the age of 74. Her publisher says the cause was complications from lymphoma. (Rebroadcast of 12/4/1987)

Poet and countercultural activist Allen Ginsberg. He died over the weekend from liver cancer, at the age of 70. We remember him with a 1994 interview; at the time a four-CD boxed set of Ginsberg's work was released, "Holy Soul Jelly Roll - Songs and Poems (1949-1993). (REBROADCAST from 11/8/94)