Poetry Briefly: 5 Podcasts To Start Your Day On A Poetic Note

Since its birth over 5000 years ago, poetry has been fighting for its place in a world where the only constant is change. Poetry's popularity is at the mercy of the robotic world, where the power of emotions and discernment gain and lose control of our worldview. Impressions and engagements are the new finger snaps and acclimating wails commonly heard from an entranced audience. No matter how traditional poetry culture has been, it must move with the people and the times.

"New media and mobile entertainment are revolutionizing the way people learn about the world" - Stephen Kinzer

The explosive growth of content creation as a market segment makes finding high-quality content a troublesome challenge. As new media consumption evolves, we will demand content with more truth, soul, and concern for an elevated human experience.

Podcasts, a new digital audio medium, stimulate conversation and storytelling as we've never seen before, making them compatible with poetry's core values. A podcast inspires deep engagement that lasts for over 30 minutes, balancing out the long-reigning dominance of short-form content.

According to Demand Sage, there are 2.4 million podcasts globally as of June 2022. Arts and Culture, Audio Dramas, and Activism are among the top ten popular podcast topics, making it easy to find poetic inspiration on every corner of the internet.

"Sometimes you gotta create what you want to be apart of" - Geri Weitzman.

Poetry podcasts are a niche yet necessary content stream that has the potential to serve a community of avid creative writers and artists. Discovering compelling poetic content is back-breaking, but finally waking up to invigorating poetic spoils makes it rewarding.

Start your day on a poetic foot with these five poetry podcasts:

1. Poem-A-Day by The Academy of American Poets

The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit organization founded in 1934, aiming to promote poets and foster an appreciation for the art of poetry. The organization does excellent work for the American poetry community, connecting millions of readers and teachers of poetry to programs, prizes, and fellowships in the name of collaboration, equity, and inclusion.

Poem-A-Day is one of the first and only digital poetry series featuring 260 new or unpublished poems yearly. The theme music and audio engineering honour the intimacy and swiftness of the poems, which are rarely longer than 5 minutes. Poem-A-Day is a great way to excite your poetic energy and support the global poetic community.

2. Poetry Unbound by On Being Studios

The On Being Project is a poetry media house that inspires the shaping of one's presence in the world and encourages fluency in one's humanity by intersecting spiritual inquiry with social healing. Founder and Peabody award-winning broadcaster Krista Tippett invites people from all walks of life to join her conversation about moral wisdom and the mysteries of our existence.

Poetry Unbound is the bite-sized, unhurried exploration of a single poem that encourages you to contemplate and leaves you vitalized. Each 15-minute episode, hosted by Pádraig Ó Tuama, promises to help anchor you in poetry and breath new life into your day.

3. The Slowdown by American Public Media

Author and recipient of the National Critics Circle Award for Poetry, Ada Limón, hosts the critically-acclaimed podcast, The Slowdown. The 5-minute episodes invite you to experience a poem and partake in a moment of reflection to inspire a moment of shift through poetry.

Supported by the National Endowment of Arts, the podcasts lay a smooth foundation for poetry enthusiasts who are young and old. Each poem is a fated drop in the ocean of a growing poetry podcasting culture that unifies and mobilizes the poetry community.

4. Poetry For All by Joanne Diaz and Abram Van Engen

If poetry analysis was your least favorite part of learning poetry in school, this podcast explores poetry the way your teacher should have. Poetry For All is a poetry education podcast that aims to investigate the root of selected poems and learn from their insights and metaphors.

Hosts Joanne Diaz and Abram Van Engen aspire to teach and learn from every poem they analyze, discussing its finer details and understanding its meaning for the reader. Their chemistry allows for an enjoyable learning experience that is perfect for any time of the day.

5. Close Talking: A Poetry Podcast by Cardbox Productions Inc

The best chat podcasts feel like a conversation between two old friends, which is exactly what this poetry podcast achieves during each episode. Close Talking is a long-form poetry podcast that mingles literary theory with pop culture inquiry. Good friends Connor Stratton and Jack Rossiter-Munely discuss the art and the artist behind it, making it an easy listen for experts and enthusiasts alike.

The intellectual discourse makes the hour of listening fly by, rewarding the patient listener with news and views about the broad state of poetry.

Many podcasts offer more resources based on what you are looking for as an artist. The podcasts mentioned lay an unshakeable foundation for the creative looking for inspiration.

The podcasts are available on all audio streaming platforms.

Let us know if you listen to poetry podcasts or if you have a local or international podcast that our poetry community would benefit from if they listened to it.