Interesting People Reading Poetry is a short, sound-rich podcast where artists and luminaries read a favorite poem and share what it means to them. Created by Andy & Brendan Stermer.
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This special episode introduces a new ambient album by Andy Stermer, who composes all of our music. Of Modern Poetry is inspired by a selection of poetic masterpieces from the mid-19th through mid-20th centuries, all of which have been featured previously on this show. The seven compositions, arranged chronologically according to the date of each poem’s first publication, offer what we hope you’ll…
In this episode, novelist Lisa Ko reads “Don’t You Wonder, Sometimes?” by Tracy K. Smith. Ko’s first book, The Leavers , was a 2017 National Book Award finalist. Her most recent book, Memory Piece (Riverhead Books, 2024) was described in Electric Literature as “a poignant meditation on late-stage capitalism: what it means to exist in an age of surveillance and government tracking, what it means to…
This IPRP Poetry Playlist features a selection of archival recordings from PennSound , a project of the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing at the University of Pennsylvania. The PennSound website includes an extensive audio archive with free recordings of hundreds of poets reading their own work. https://open.spotify.com/episode/4LaSIL9xy50Zf8hhFutG7Y?si=rq4P94nZSemjjXV6CWMRtw Tracklist…
In this episode, Amy Dickinson reads “Say It” by Roland Flint. Dickinson wrote the beloved daily advice column “Ask Amy,” which appeared in newspapers across the country from 2003 until her retirement in June of 2024. She is also the author of two memoirs and a new Substack newsletter . https://open.spotify.com/episode/0Biu5xhk2gBgrbInN0mccP Roland Flint was born in Park River, North Dakota in…
In this IPRP Poetry Playlist, U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón reads three selections from the anthology You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World , out now from Milkweed Editions. The collection, edited and introduced by Limón, offers “fifty poems reflecting on our relationship to the natural world by our most celebrated contemporary writers.” Click here to learn more about the anthology, including…
In this episode, Roy Foster reads “Sailing to Byzantium” by William Butler Yeats. Foster is Emeritus Professor of Irish History at the University of Oxford and the author of many books, including his classic, two-volume biography of Yeats, published in 1997 and 2003. In a review of the first volume published in the New York Review of Books , the Irish novelist John Banville wrote: “ W.B. Yeats: A…
In this IPRP Poetry Playlist, our host Brendan Stermer reads three poems from his debut chapbook, Forgotten Frequencies , out now from North Dakota State University Press. The books were printed in a limited edition at The Braddock News Letterpress Museum in Braddock, ND and assembled by hand by students in the publishing program at North Dakota State University in Fargo. Forgotten Frequencies was…
In this episode, musician and writer Dessa reads an excerpt from “Natural Enemies of the Conch” by Alan Dugan. Dessa first gained prominence as a rapper with the Twin Cities hip hop collective Doomtree, but has since worked across many genres and creative disciplines. She has collaborated with the Minnesota Orchestra, published a memoir and poetry collections, and even hosted a BBC science…
For each IPRP Poetry Playlist, we curate a selection of three poems, loosely thematically related, presented with musical score, but without any commentary or historical context. We encourage you to approach these short episodes with the same relaxed attitude you might take toward a playlist on a burnt CD, given to you by a friend, which you casually pop in on a long road trip. Don’t worry about…
In this episode, Tish Harrison Warren reads “Possible Answers to Prayer” by Scott Cairns. Warren is an Anglican priest and the author of two award-winning books, Liturgy of the Ordinary and Prayer in the Night . She also writes a weekly newsletter for the New York Times on “faith in private life and public discourse.” https://open.spotify.com/episode/1AbkP0s1yJuIkhp82QU4lS “Possible Answers to…
