WXXI Poetry Moments 2015

A partnership with BOA Editions, celebrating more than 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 April 13 – 24 on AM 1370 and Classical 91.5.

Listen to the series:



Tall Girl Running by Louis Simpson, read by Grant Holcombe

Monday, April 13, 2015

9:20am and 4:30pm on WXXI Classical 91.5, and 3:31pm on WXXI-AM 1370

Louis Simpson was the author of seventeen books of poetry and won numerous awards including the Rome Fellowship of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Hudson Review Fellowship, Guggenheim Foundation fellowships, and the Pulitzer Prize. His book The Owner of the House: New Collected Poems 1940-2001 (BOA Editions, 2003) was a finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry and the Griffin Poetry Prize. He died in 2012.

Flickr photo by Ashley Bowen Murphy

Elegy by Aracelis Girmay, read by Boo Poulin

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

9:20am and 4:30pm on WXXI Classical 91.5, and 3:31pm on WXXI-AM 1370

Aracelis Girmay is author of the poetry collections Teeth and Kingdom Animalia (BOA Editions, 2011). Her awards include the GCLA New Writers Award, the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award, and a 2015 Whiting Award. Born and raised in Southern California, with roots in Puerto Rico, Eritria, and African America, Girmay is assistant professor of poetry writing at Hampshire College and teaches in the low-residency MFA program at Drew University. She is a Cave Canem Fellow and an Acentos board member.

Flickr photo by Giang Ho Thi Hoang

If the Moon Were My Lover by Geffrey Davis, read by Peter Connors

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

9:20am and 4:30pm on WXXI Classical 91.5, and 3:31pm on WXXI-AM 1370

Geffrey Davis is a Cave Canem Fellow and recipient of the Wabash Prize for Poetry and the Leonard Steinberg Memorial/Academy of American Poets Prize. He is also Co-Founder and Co-Editor of the online journal Toe Good Poetry. Davis won the 12th annual A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize for his first book of poetry Revising the Storm (BOA Editions, 2014), selected by Dorianne Laux.  He is an Assistant Professor teaching in the MFA program at the University of Arkansas

Flickr photo by Nate Wilson

Ex Nihilo by Devin Becker, read by Jonathan Everitt

Thursday, April 16, 2015

9:20am and 4:30pm on WXXI Classical 91.5, and 3:38pm on WXXI-AM 1370

Devin Becker, author of the poetry collection Shame / Shame (BOA Editions, 2015) grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and holds degrees from Williams College, the University of California, Irvine, and Indiana University. His poetry and research articles have been published in American Archivist, Cutbank, Faultline, Microform and Digitization Review, Midwestern Gothic, The Pinch, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. He currently lives in Moscow, Idaho, where he works as the digital initiatives librarian at the University of Idaho Library.

Flickr photo by Temari 09

Petition by Brigit Pegeen Kelly, read by Anne Coon

Friday, April 17, 2015

9:20am and 4:30pm on WXXI Classical 91.5, and 3:38pm on WXXI-AM 1370

Brigit Pegeen Kelly has published three books of poetry: To the Place of Trumpets (Yale University Press, 1988), selected by James Merrill for the Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize, Song (BOA Editions, Ltd., 1995), winner of the Lamont Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets and The Orchard (BOA Editions, 2004), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and the Pulitzer Prize.

Flickr photo by David Morris

Pointillism by Fleda Brown, read by Alex Weiser

Monday, April 20, 2015

9:20am and 4:30pm on WXXI Classical 91.5, and 3:31pm on WXXI-AM 1370

Fleda Brown’s seven collections of poems include No Need of Sympathy (BOA Editions, 2012). Her awards include a Pushcart Prize, the Felix Pollak Prize, the Philip Levine Prize, and the Great Lakes Colleges New Writer’s Award. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, and have been used as texts for several prize-winning musical compositions performed at Eastman School of Music, Yale University, and by the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble. She is a former poet laureate of Delaware, and is on the faculty of the Rainier Writing Workshop.

Flickr photo by Alfie Ianni

Conformity by Yannis Ritsos, read by Tony Leuzzi

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

9:20am and 4:30pm on WXXI Classical 91.5, and 3:38pm on WXXI-AM 1370

Yannis Ritsos was one of Greece's most prolific, distinguished and celebrated poets whose many honors included the Alfred de Vigny Award (France, 1975) and the Lenin Prize (U.S.S.R., 1977). His landmark collection, Yannis Ritsos: Selected Poems 1938-1988 was published by BOA Editions in 1989 and remains in-print, serving as a monumental volume that represents 50 years of this major international poet's work. He died in 1990.

Flickr photo by Cliff

Two Truths by Nguyen Phan Que Mai, read by Aimee Senise Bohn

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

9:20am and 4:30pm on WXXI Classical 91.5, and 3:38pm on WXXI-AM 1370

Born in a small village in the North of Vietnam in 1973, Nguyen Phan Que Mai is the author of three poetry collections and translator of six poetry books. Her poems have been translated and published in English, Spanish, Bahasa Indonesian, Chinese and Uzbek, and have been featured at major international poetry festivals including the First Asia-Pacific Poetry Festival and the Qinghai International Poetry Festival, as well as the International Poetry Festival of Medellin, Colombia.

Flickr photo by sisterstour svn com

Penelope Unravels by Francisca Aguirre, read by Sejal Shah

Thursday, April 23, 2015

9:20am and 4:30pm on WXXI Classical 91.5, and 3:38pm on WXXI-AM 1370

Francisca Aguirre was born in Alicante, Spain in 1930.  Her family was forced to flee to France at the end of the Civil War because they sided with the Republic. In 1942, as a result of the German invasion, her family returned to Spain where her father, painter Lorenzo Aguirre, was murdered by the Franco regime. In 2004, BOA Editions published Ana Valverde Osan’s translation of Aguirre’s first poetry collection, Ithaca, a reworking of the Greek myth of Odysseus told from Penelope's perspective.

Flickr photo by Jimmy Smith  

Two Lives by Nin Andrews, read by Cindy Rogers

Friday, April 24, 2015

9:20am and 4:30pm on WXXI Classical 91.5, and 3:31pm on WXXI-AM 1370

Nin Andrews grew up on a farm in Charlottesville, Virginia. She is the author of numerous books including Why God Is a Woman (BOA Editions, 2015), and Sleeping with Houdini (BOA Editions, 2007) which was named one of the ten best poetry books of 2010 by the Monserrat Review. Her poems and stories appear widely in such places as Ploughshares, The Paris Review, Best American Poetry, Great American Prose Poems, and elsewhere. She lives in Poland, Ohio.

Flickr photo by smilla4