Poems for Company

Poems for Company - June 22, 2026

“Gone Parents“: Poets featured today consider deceased parents, somewhat sentimentally or as mysterious dream figures.  Ted Kooser, “Mother” and “Father,” from Delights & Shadows (Copper Canyon Press, 2004).  Seamus Heaney, “Uncoupled,” from Selected Poems 1988-2013 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014; originally published in Human Chain (2010).  Kathleen Flenniken, “The Sound of a Train,” from Famous (U. of Nebraska Press, 2006), used with the kind permission of the author.  I am sorry to report that Philip Aaberg died in late May of this year.  When I reached out to him years ago and requested to use his music on my show, he was spontaneously generous.  Compelling in concert, he continues to be...

Poems for Company - May 25, 2026

“What’s So Funny?”: Will any of today’s poems make you laugh?  Billy Collins, “To My Favorite 17-Year-Old High School Girl,” from Aimless Love: New and Selected Poems (Random House, 2013).  Stephen Dunn, “John & Mary,” from The Not Yet Fallen World: New and Selected Poems (W.W. Norton & Company, 2022).  Caroline Bird, “Little Children,” from The Air Year (Carcanet, 2020), https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781784109028/the-air-year/   Would you like to share with me a favorite poem that makes you laugh?  If so, please contact me, Brian Dillon, at feedback@kmun,org.  The show’s theme music is Philip Aaberg’s “Going-to-the-Sun,” from Live from Montana (available at sweetgrassmusic.com) and used with the kind permission of Mr. Aaberg.

Poems for Company - April 27, 2026

“Wake Up: Modern Aubades”: Traditionally, aubades are lyrics announcing the arrival of dawn all too soon for lovers who want the night to be prolonged.  The twentieth-century poems featured here take some liberties with that tradition.  After an excerpt from John Donne’s “The Sun Rising” (1633), Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill, “Aubade,” from Pharaoh’s Daughter (Wake Forest U. Press, 1993; Pharaoh’s Daughter by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill | WFU Press ).  Philip Larkin, “Aubade,” from Collected Poems (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2001). The show’s theme music is Philip Aaberg’s “Going-to-the-Sun,” from Live from Montana (available at sweetgrassmusic.com) and used with the kind permission of Mr. Aaberg.

Poems for Company - March 16th, 2026

“Neighbors”: When you recall the places where you lived, do you inevitably reflect on who else was in close proximity?  This episode presents three distinct ways of thinking about one’s neighbors.  Robert Frost, “Mending Wall.”  John Heywood, “A Quiet Neighbour.”  Robert Wrigley, “Praise Bob,” from The True Account of Myself as a Bird (Penguin Books, 2022), used with the kind permission of the author.  The show’s theme music is Philip Aaberg’s “Going-to-the-Sun” from Live from Montana (available at sweetgrassmusic.com) and used with the kind permission of Mr. Aaberg.

Poems for Company - February 23rd, 2026

“Revised Bible Stories”: Poets give voice to characters who are silent in the Bible, and they speculate on what the Bible left out.  They allow us to imagine less conventional roles for certain characters, as these three poems suggest.  Molly Twomey, “Noah’s Wife,” from Raised Among Vultures, and used by kind permission of the author and The Gallery Press, 2022 (www.gallerypress.com).  J. Estanislao Lopez, “Alternate Ending: The Escape of Jephthah’s Daughter,” from We Borrowed Gentleness (Alice James Books, 2022).  Brian Doyle, “The Second Letter of Lazarus to His Sisters,” from A Shimmer of Something, copyright by Brian Doyle (Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota, 2014), and...