On ‘Radio Times’: Yolanda Wisher and Patrick Rosal celebrate National Poetry Month

Earlier this morning, Marty Moss-Coane asked Yolanda Wisher and Patrick Rosal to share some of their poems.

April is National Poetry Month, and Philadelphia has a strong poetry community. Yolanda Wisher, Philadelphia’s current and third poet laureate and author of the poetry collection Monk Eats an Afro talked about her work, influences and goals to make poetry accessible.

“I’d love it if you could walk into your laundromat and find poetry, or walk into your supermarket or your post office,” Wisher said. “The municipal services that would feel a little bit more like the honey of life if we added some poetry.”

Patrick Rosal, associate professor of English at Rutgers-Camden MFA, author of Brooklyn Antediluvian and 2017 John Guggenheim Fellow joined the conversation as well to discuss his life growing up in the Philippines, his influences and the poetry scene in the Philadelphia.

Earlier this morning, Marty Moss-Coane asked Wisher and Rosal to share some of their poems. In this clip, Wisher read sonnet w/cooking lexicon, and Rosal read Ode to Eating a Pomegranate in Brooklyn.

Listen to the other poems shared on Radio Times.