Literary figures/poets

She's the author of the new memoir, Brief Intervals of Horrible Sanity: One Season in a Progressive School. It's about her brief stint as a midyear replacement English teacher in Queens, N.Y. Gold teaches writing at several branches of the City University of New York.

He has compiled a new anthology of 120 poems, titled Poets of World War II (American Poets Project). The poets include Kenneth Koch, James Dickey, Richard Hugo, Marianne Moore and Robert Lowell. Some of the poets have experienced combat, others have not. Shapiro is a decorated veteran of World War II; he flew 35 missions as an Air Force radio gunner.

In January, Hamill was invited by first lady Laura Bush to the White House for a symposium on poetry. Because of his opposition to the war it was not an invitation he welcomed. In response, he created the Web site poetsagainstthewar.org. Thousands of poets responded, including Rita Dove, W.S. Merwin, Adrienne Rich and Poet Laureate Billy Collins. When the White House heard about the site, the symposium was cancelled. A new anthology, Poets Against The War, collects 13,000 of these anti-war poems.

Lloyd Schwartz on poet Elizabeth Bishop and how he saved a poem of hers from obscurity. It's called "Breakfast Song." Lloyd is the editor of Elizabeth Bishop and Her Art (University of Michigan Press). The poem will be published in the upcoming issue of The New Yorker.

He is one of New York's most notable spoken-word artists. He blends lyrics of urban dwelling with music. Born in Harlem, Sundiata is a professor of English literature at The New School for Social Research. He's released CDs of spoken word including The Blue Oneness of Dreams and Urban Music. This week, Sundiata premieres his new one-man show blessing the boats. It's about the year his kidney failed, he went into dialysis and then had a kidney transplant.

Poet Sharon Olds. Her new collection of poems is The Unswept Room. She has a number of previous collections, including Satan Says and The Dead and the Living. Olds was the New York State Poet Laureate from 1998 to 2000. She teaches poetry workshops in the Graduate Creative Writing Program at New York University.

Performance poet Sekou Sundiata. He is one of New York's notable spoken word artists, blending lyrics of urban dwelling with music. Born in Harlem, he is a professor of English Literature at The New School for Social Research. He's released several CDs of his work, including The Blue Oneness of Dreams and Urban Music. He's published a new journal (in pamphlet form), Heart: Human Equity Through Art.

We remember the poet Kenneth Koch, who died Saturday.

Poet Donald Hall returns to the show to discuss his new collection of poetry, The Painted Bed, much of it written in mourning for his late wife, poet Jane Kenyon. Hall received the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in poetry for his collection, The One Day, and the 1990 Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America for Old and New Poems.

Paul Muldoon reads: Ode ii-10 (to Licinius) (23 B.C.) by Horace; A Normal Day by Dorothy Muldoon; September 1, 1939 (1940) by W.H. Auden