Season 2 · Now airing

Love, Unrequited

The love that remains unfulfilled — it never gets to speak. The letter unsent, the name worn smooth by thinking. The heartache of the one-sided lover, the pining that has no end, the yearning that fills empty rooms. Some of the most devastatingly beautiful poetry ever written comes from love that could not, or would not, be returned.

✿
1Episode
Season Opener · Two poems

A Kind of Theft

Vikram Seth & Camonghne Felix

Two poems that ache in different ways. Seth's quiet address to everyone lying awake missing someone. Felix's raw interior poem about desire as theft. One common ache.

Read → Listen
2Episode
Two poems

The Empty Rooms of the Heart

Brionne Janae & Charles Bukowski

A room built and offered. A room that refuses to fill. Two poets on the same ache — one opening into hope, one that simply, honestly, stays.

Read → Listen
3Episode
Two poems

Losing It Slowly, Losing It All at Once

Lang Leav & Tishani Doshi

Every love starts with a spark. Few stay magical forever. Two poets trace the arc from beginning to end — losing it slowly, then all at once.

Read → Listen
4Episode
Two poems · Five centuries apart

Friend Zoned

Julian T. Brolaski & Mirza Ghalib

You didn't crash — you were handed a parachute. Two poets on what it's like once you touch down in the friend zone: one a contemporary sonnet, one a 19th-century ghazal.

Read → Listen
5Episode
Two poems · Longing across distance

Breathing, Sleeping, Whispering

Margaret Atwood & Jeffrey McDaniel

One offers everything and asks for nothing. The other has almost nothing left to give — just fifty-nine words saved all day for the person on the other end of the line.

Read → Listen
6Episode
Two poems · The power dynamic of love

The Power of (the One Less in) Love

Stephen Dunn & Faiz Ahmed Faiz

A folk spell for keeping someone who's already gone, and a renunciation of love itself for something larger. Two poets on the different ways devotion gets withheld.

Read → Listen
7Episode
Two poems · In darkness and silence

Waiting...

Linda Gregg & Adam Zagajewski

Two poets spend an evening waiting — away from their love, in darkness, in silence, in a private inventory of yes and no. One accepts the distance. One discovers, in the last three words, what he has been waiting for all along.

Read → Listen
8Episode
Two poems · Givers and predators

Ghosts and Predators

Kelli Russell Agodon & Vievee Francis

Love is rarely given and received in equal measure. One poet finds tenderness in its sadness. The other sorts the world into cardinals, rabbits — and those with talons.

Read → Listen
9Episode
Three poems · Long-distance ache

A Love Letter, a Prayer, a Parallel Universe

Ted Kooser, Carol Ann Duffy & Trista Mateer

Three poems, one long-distance ache. A pocket letter warm from the writer's hand, a song of desire stretched across the dark, a love that spills into parallel universes.

Read → Listen