WXXI Poetry Moments 2012

A partnership with BOA Editions, celebrating 35 years of independent publishing

WXXI will celebrate poets and their beautiful words during the month of April, which is National Poetry Month. Once again this year, we will have a special series of Poetry Moments, created in collaboration with Rochester-based BOA Editions. These WXXI / BOA Poetry Moments will be broadcast at 9:30 a.m. and 6:58 p.m. on Classical 91.5, 90.3 and 91.5 HD, and at 9:49 a.m. and 7:29 p.m. on AM 1370 and FM 91.5-2.

Listen to the series:

A Tree by Yannis Ritsos, read by Tony Leuzzi

Airs Sunday, April 15

One of Greece's most prolific and celebrated poets, Ritsos' honors include the Alfred de Vigny Award (France, 1975) and the Lenin Prize (U.S.S.R., 1977). He lived from 1909 to 1990 and is one of Greece's most widely translated poets. Yannis Ritsos: Selected Poems 1938-1988 (BOA Editions Ltd., 1989) represents the work of 17 linguists who translated hundreds of his poems into English.

Flickr photo by Mark J Devine

The Angel of Imagination by Al Poulin, Jr., read by Anne Coon

Airs Monday, April 16

Author of eight books and founder of Rochester-based independent publishing house BOA Editions, Ltd., Poulin served as professor of English at the State University College at Brockport. BOA published his Selected Poems collection in 2001, on their 25th anniversary.

Flickr photo by orangeacid

The Sober Song by Barton Sutter, read by Glenn William

Airs Monday, April 16

The only author to win the Minnesota Book Award in three different categories, Sutter has written for public radio and regularly performs as one half of The Sutter Brothers. Sutter recently retired from the University of Wisconsin, Superior, and lives in Duluth. His newest poetry collection, The Reindeer Camps, was published by BOA in spring 2012.

Flickr photo by quinn.anya

Kingdom Animalia by Aracelis Girmay, read by Jonathan Everitt

Airs Tuesday, April 17

Winner of the 2011 Isabella Gardner Award and 2012 Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, Girmay is the author of Kingdom Animalia, published in fall 2011 from BOA Editions. She is assistant professor of poetry at Hampshire College, and also teaches in the low-residency MFA program at Drew University in New Jersey. Girmay is a Cave Canem Fellow and an Acentos board member.

Flickr photo by Lee Winder

Desire by Keetje Kuipers, read by Bernadette Catalana

Airs Tuesday, April 17

Kuipers earned her B.A. at Swarthmore College and her M.F.A. at the University of Oregon. In 2007 she was the Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Writing Resident. While there, she completed work on her book Beautiful in the Mouth, which was awarded the 2009 A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize.

Flickr photo by Dave 77459

birth-day by Lucille Clifton, read by Peter Conners

Airs Wednesday, April 18

National Book Award-winning poet Lucille Clifton served as a Distinguished Professor of Humanities at St. Mary's College in Maryland. She was appointed a Fellow of The American Academy of Arts and Sciences and elected as Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets in 1999. Two of Clifton's books were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in 1988—a unique achievement among authors. The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965-2010 is forthcoming from BOA Editions in fall 2012 and includes a Foreword by Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison.

Flickr photo by Kowitz

Poem that picks up where Neruda left off by Barton Sutter, read by Dan Meyers

Airs Wednesday, April 18

The only author to win the Minnesota Book Award in three different categories, Sutter has written for public radio and regularly performs as one half of The Sutter Brothers. Sutter recently retired from the University of Wisconsin, Superior, and lives in Duluth. His newest poetry collection, The Reindeer Camps, was published by BOA in spring 2012.

Flickr photo by hichako

What There Was by Janice N. Harrington, read by Cindy Rogers

Airs Thursday, April 19

A writer of poetry and children's books, Harrington teaches in the creative writing program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is the winner of a 2007 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship for Poetry and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award for her first collection, Even The Hollow My Body Made is Gone (BOA, 2008). Harrington has also worked as a public librarian and as a professional storyteller, performing at festivals around the country, including the National Storytelling Festival. Her newest collection of poetry, The Hands of Strangers: Poems from the Nursing Home, was published from BOA Editions in fall 2011.

Flickr photo by dechavez_monica

Progress by Christopher Kennedy, read by David LeVant

Airs Thursday, April 19

Christopher Kennedy is Director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Syracuse University. His first book by BOA Editions, Encouragement for a Man Falling to His Death (2007) won the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award. His prose poems are always as jarringly off-beat as they are hauntingly familiar and strangely beautiful.

Flickr photo by Jason Coleman

If We Do This Thing Together, You and I by Keetje Kuipers, read by Julia Postler

Airs Friday, April 20

Keetje Kuipers earned her B.A. at Swarthmore College and her M.F.A. at the University of Oregon. In 2007 she was the Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Writing Resident. While there, she completed work on her book Beautiful in the Mouth, which was awarded the 2009 A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize.

Flickr photo by wallyg



Night Song by Matthew Shenoda, read by Carla Giabrone

Airs Friday, April 20

A 2006 American Book Award winner, Shenoda is currently Assistant Provost for Equity & Diversity and Professor in the School of Critical Studies at California Institute of the Arts. His latest collection, Seasons of Lotus, Seasons of Bone, was published in fall 2009 from BOA Editions.

Flickr photo by zizzybaloobah