“Unrequited Love,” Part One: Poets respond in a variety of ways when their strong desires for another are not returned: from anger to bewilderment to resignation. Over time, a number of episodes of Poems for Company will focus on this theme. Today’s show features these poems: Sappho, Poem # 94, translator Michael R. Burch (thehypertexts.com/Sappho Longer Poems in Translations by Michael R. Burch.htm), read with kind permission of the translator. Catullus, Poem # 8. Edna St. Vincent Millay, Sonnet 47 (“Well, I have lost you; and I lost you fairly”). W. B. Yeats, “When You Are Old.” Sharon Olds, “Unspeakable,” from Stag’s Leap (Knopf, 2012), read with kind permission of the author. The show’s theme music is Philip Aaberg’s “Going-to-the-Sun” from his CD Live from Montana (Sweetgrassmusic.com).
KMUN