Faith Middleton Show: Blue for Oceans

First among all poetic virtues, according to Ezra Pound, is the heart's tone. In the poems of this debut collection, the tone of the poet's heart sounds clearly.

Set within an American family in the second half of the twentieth century, the poems move from California to New England, from boyhood to ailing parents, from a long marriage to love's dissolutions, from childbirth to children leaving home.

Understated, perceptive, grounded in the occasions of ordinary life, these remarkable poems by a writer looking back from midlife feel like long promised gifts, long waited for.

“Charles Douthat writes movingly of ‘the days whispered through us’—what time takes and leaves. His poems take to heart the precious discoveries we are allowed. Blue for Oceans is a hunated and wise book.” — J. D. McClatchy

In this special conversation, we're joined by the poet Charles Douthat, his son, the New York Times Op-Ed columnist Ross Douthat, and New Haven Review Books publisher and host of WNPR’s Paper Trails, Mark Oppenheimer.