MPR has had a keen ear for capturing the words and meter of poetry. Minnesota is home to many nationally renowned poets, city and state poet laureates, spoken word artists, and individuals young and old that have simply created work for the sake of the form. The state is also a magnet for poets all throughout the world. Here is a wonderful breadth of those readings, speeches, thoughts, and histories of the poet.
April 15, 1996 - On this segment of Voices of Minnesota, MPR’s Dan Olson sits down with one of our region's best known poets Michael Dennis Browne of his early career in the arts, his travels to China, and his new work.
April 15, 1996 - On this segment of Voices of Minnesota, MPR’s Dan Olson sits down with one of our region's best known poets Michael Dennis Browne in his home to talk about his life and poetry.
April 26, 1996 - MPR’s Dan Gunderson profiles poet David Mason and his long form narrative poem, "The Country I Remember."
May 10, 1996 - Duluth poet Barton Sutter provides commentary on the importance of poetry and it’s status in the United States.
May 22, 1996 - MPR’s Chris Roberts profiles Red Wing poet and teacher Robert Hedin, whose assembled a literary history of the train titled "The Great Machines: Poems and Songs of the American Railroad."
September 9, 1996 - MPR’s John Rabe interviews Irish poet Seamus Heaney, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Heaney speaks about the importance of radio in his life. Heaney also reads numerous poems.
September 12, 1996 - Seamus Heaney, Irish poet and Nobel Prize winner, speaks at Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis for the annual Global Voices Lecture series. Heaney reads numerous poems during speech.
September 18, 1996 - MPR’s Chris Roberts presents a story about the birth of a poet. 10-year-old Josh Tane, of St. Paul, would probably be the last to tell you that he deserves the title of "poet." But last year, to the amazement of his teacher and parents, Josh discovered his muse and wrote some remarkable poems.
September 20, 1996 - Voices from the Heartland presents poet Diane Glancy reading "Voices in Wind," a work about the land.
October 14, 1996 - On this Odd Jobs segment, MPR’s Tim Kelly interviews Neal Henry Lawrence, an 88-year-old monk from Saint John's Abbey in Collegeville, who's lived in Tokyo for almost four decades, and is a pioneer in the writing of Tanka in English.