It may have arrived late this year, but spring is finally here. To mark the return of sunny, longer days, poet Richard Blanco joined Boston Public Radio to share poems all about spring.
Some of these poems deal specifically with blooming, sprouting, gardening, and growth, like Denise Levertov's "The Metier of Blossoming" or "I Have This Way Of Being" by Jamaal May. Others have a more abstract connection to the concept of "spring," like E.E. Cummings's "somewhere I have never travelled,gladly beyond."
"I always read [E.E. Cummings] to remind me how poetry can affect us and entice us and entrance us in ways that are beyond the words themselves, but are about the musicality of language and how — like music — they can sort create these sensations, create a different kind of meaning," Blanco said.
"I was thinking about spring...It's just a sensation. We can't exactly explain it. It lives in us, and we accept it, and we ingest it and we live it, the way spring feels in us," he continued.
Follow along with the poems discussed in this segment, in order:
- "The Metier of Blossoming" by Denise Levertov
- "somewhere I have never travelled,gladly beyond" by E.E. Cummings
- "I Have This Way Of Being" by Jamaal May
Richard Blanco is the fifth presidential inaugural poet in U.S. history, and his latest project is the book “Boundaries,” a collaboration with photographer Jacob Hessler. To hear more, tune in to the audio player above.
