![]() ![]() I interviewed her at the University of North Carolina Asheville in 2016. Marilyn Nelson is professor emerita of English at the University of Connecticut, and a former chancellor of The Academy of American Poets. Tippett: I’m Krista Tippett, and this is On Being. And what it is is not words it’s silence. ![]() Don’t you think? You read a poem and you say, “Ah.” And then you listen to what it brings out inside of you. Poetry opens us to this otherness that exists within us. And that’s why reading poetry, reading it alone silently takes us someplace where we can’t get ordinarily. But then they turn us back into our own silence. They emerge before us, and they call up something in us. ![]() Marilyn Nelson: Poetry consists of words and phrases and sentences that emerge like something coming out of water. And alongside the gentle but mighty esteem Marilyn Nelson commands in the communion of modern poets, she’s a voice for all of us in the work and the privilege of what she calls “communal pondering.” To sit with her is to gain a newly spacious perspective on what that might mean - and on why people young and old are turning to poetry with urgency. She’s taught poetry and contemplative practice to West Point cadets. She’s written for both adults and children. She shines a light on the complicated ancestry we have in common and that can help us in the work we have to do together now. She gives winsome voice to forgotten people from history - and from her own family. Krista Tippett, host: Marilyn Nelson is a storytelling poet. ![]()
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