Glaucoma
The Favorite Poem Project: Justin Lamb reads Rives
Justin Lamb (COM ’07), president and cofounder of Speak for Yourself: BU Slam Poetry
“Glaucoma” by Rives
“I chose this poem in part because it is a spoken word poem performed by one of my favorite artists. I actually had the opportunity to watch him perform a week or two ago. He’s a really captivating performer, and I thought the BU community would enjoy this.”
"By reading poems we love aloud, we can learn how much pleasure there can be in the sounds of words,” says Robert Pinsky, a CAS professor and former U.S. poet laureate. “It’s as though saying the words of a poem aloud makes one feel more able, more capable than in ordinary life. You enter a different state.”
Pinsky founded the Favorite Poem Project in 1997 during the first of an unprecedented three terms as poet laureate to encourage Americans to celebrate and explore their love of poetry. Since then, the project — now directed by BU poet Maggie Dietz (GRS’97) — has produced three anthologies and more than 1,000 readings around the country.
Throughout the semester, BU Today features a member of the BU community reading his or her favorite poem. Any student or faculty or staff member can participate.
If you’d like to read your favorite poem for BU Today, e-mail us at today@bu.edu.
Click here to listen to Kathy Kuhn read Wallace Stevens.
Click here to listen to Andrew Clark read Robert Hass.
Click here to listen to Hakim Walker (CAS'09) read Martin Luther King, Jr.
Click here to listen to an autumn’s worth of favorite poems.