Poetry

Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz is also an accomplished poet. The U.S. Information Agency recently sent Lloyd to Brazil for a lecture tour. He tells us he found a country with a huge love of poetry.

Biographer Diane Wood Middlebrook. She's written a controversial new book about the troubled writer Anne Sexton. The controversy surrounds Middlebrook's source material: she had access to transcripts of Sexton's psychiatric sessions with the approval of Sexton's daughter and psychiatrist. Sexton killed herself in 1974. She began writing poetry in 1956 following a suicidal breakdown and after her therapist suggested she try writing poetry. ("Anne Sexton: A Biography," published by Houghton Mifflin).

Poet Philip Levine. Levine's considered one of this country's preeminent poet, but before he turned to poetry he put in years working factory jobs. The images of those early days continue to influence his writings. Levine's latest collection of poems is called "What Work Is." (It's published by Knopf).

Pratt's book of poetry, "Crime Against Nature," was chosen by the Academy of American Poets as the 1989 Lamont Poetry Selection. Many of her poems are about being a lesbian, and losing custody of her two sons when she came out. Pratt just won the Hammett/Hellman Award, given by the Fund for Free Expression.

Mira is a third-generation Japanese-American who, in 1984, visited Japan for the first time. His own grandfather left that country at the turn of the century, and during World War II Mura's parents were interned in a relocation camp. He's written a memoir about his heritage, called "Turning Japanese: Memoirs of a Sansei."

Amichai is one of his country's leading poets. Born in Europe, he fought in the Israeli army through many of the country's conflicts. He contemplates war in his new collection of poetry, "Even a Fist was Once an Open Palm with Fingers."

Venclova's outspoken comments cost him his Soviet citizenship. After leaving his home in Lithuania, he's spent the the past 14 years in the U.S, and now teaches at Yale University.

Terry asks three people about how the war is affecting their creative work: Arab poet Zabyah Khamis, American poet Galway Kinnell, and political cartoonist Dan Wasserman.

The Fresh Air poet-in-residence reads a new work, "The Ivory Novel," in which he dreams of writing a novel about saving African elephants from poachers.

Olds reads a poem about her father, centered around his bed -- the site of his romances and, ultimately, his passing.

Snyder was part of the beat poetry scene in 1950s San Francisco, and inspired a character in several Jack Kerouac novels. He studied Eastern philosophy and religion, and later settled in a more isolated part of the United States -- far from the urban world. He won the Pulitzer Prize, and continues to teach and write. His new collection of essays considers his relationship with the wilderness.

Fresh Air's poet-in-residence shares his reflections on the memories that gave him the most intense but evanescent pleasure.

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.