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The Morning Show - With Jill Riley

Coffee Break: celebrating the poets

Let's celebrate poets and poetry for today's Coffee Break.
Let's celebrate poets and poetry for today's Coffee Break. Alvaro Serrano/Unsplash

by Jill Riley

December 07, 2023

Thursday night at the Fine Line, Arlo Parks will perform unplugged music and poetry as part of The Current’s Winter Warmup. Back in September, Parks released The Magic Border: Poetry and Fragments from My Soft Machine, a collection of 20 original poems along with song lyrics from her second full-length album.

Parks is just one in a long line of musicians who are poets — published or not. (Today happens to be the 74th birthday of the quite poetic musician Tom Waits.) There is also no shortage of songs that reference poets. So for today, let’s celebrate music’s poetic side.

For today’s 9:30 Coffee Break, what songs by or about poets do you want to hear?


Respond with your song ideas in the comments below.

Have an idea for a Coffee Break topic? Submit your idea for a future theme and browse past Coffee Breaks in our archive.

Songs Played
Arlo Parks - Weightless
The Tragically Hip - Poets
Andrew Bird - I felt a Funeral, in my Brain feat. Phoebe Bridgers
Tom Waits - What's He Building
Ken Nordine - Magenta
Sinéad O'Connor - I Am Stretched On Your Grave
Silver Jews - Sometimes A Pony Gets Depressed
Happy Mondays - Hallelujah (MacColl Mix) (bonus)