A Poet's Voice Rises from the Archives

Trish Crapo

Henry Lyman interviewed dozens of poets from the mid-'70s through the '90s.

Enlarge Frank Faulkner

Poet Robert Francis reads from his collection at his home in Amherst, Mass. in 1976.

Frank Faulkner

Poet Robert Francis, left, with Henry Lyman, at the poet's home in Amherst, Mass., 1976.

From 1976 to 1994, Henry Lyman hosted a public radio program called Poems to a Listener from member station WFCR in Amherst, Mass.

Through readings and conversation, Poems to a Listener took local — and eventually, national — audiences to intimate settings where poets such as Gwendolyn Brooks, William Stafford, Seamus Heaney, Yehuda Amichai and many others reflected on their lives, work and inspiration.

In one memorable broadcast, award-winning poet Robert Francis invited listeners into his wooded, one-story home in Amherst to hear works from his Collected Poems as well as some poems that would later be published posthumously in Late Fire, Late Snow.

"Home," he said, "is this little house in which I live, and much beyond it."

Francis and many of the other poets who brought life to Poems to a Listener have since died, but their work is still with us.

In recognition of National Poetry Month, All Things Considered will feature excerpts from the program throughout April.

Join us as we delve into Henry Lyman's archives.