Reading Poetry

In this episode, Trinity Forum President, Cherie Harder speaks with internationally acclaimed poet and writer, Dana Gioia, who is a former California Poet laureate and Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts.

The conversation in this episode considers the personal as well as the universal, including how Dana became interested in poetry, and what can be done to interest a generation of readers to the habit of reading and even memorizing poetry. This podcast is an edited version of an Evening Conversation, which you can find with video and transcript, here.

We encourage you to put the ideas discussed in this episode into practice by starting your own reading group. The Trinity Forum Bookclub Box has everything you need to get started.

If you’re interested in reading literature in community, we encourage you to check out our newly announced Bookclub Box. The Bookclub Box is designed to make it easy for you to host your own reading group. Each quarter will release a new box with a trio of curated, thematically linked Trinity Forum Readings. You’ll also get a discussion guide to spur conversation on each of the Readings, as well as some other great Trinity Forum items, including a tote bag, notepad, pen and bookmark.

Below are some Trinity Forum Readings that are pertinent to this discussion.

• Spirit & Imagination, Selections for Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• Sacred & Profane Love, The Poetry of John Donne
• Bulletins From Immortality, Poems by Emily Dickinson
• The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri
• God’s Grandeur: The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins