Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac broadcasts - each one a short five minutes or so I believe - are my favorite thing on radio. They make me cry with happiness. He reads a poem in each one, often by current authors I've never heard of. Some of them I don't care for, but some of them are absolute gold, and I don't want to lose them. When the day comes I have extra money to spend, I intend to buy the books of poetry by the authors that I enjoyed and admired on Writer's Almanac.

Someone said, perhaps Yeats - feel free to enlighten me if you know, just use the "contact us" button at the upper right - that poems express a particular mode of consciousness that cannot be expressed in any other way, that cannot be put into words, yet in a poem, the essence is more than the sum of the words - so the result is communicating something that cannot be otherwise communicated, and which is quintessentially human...or humane.

So, this is simply a list of my favorite episodes/poems on Writer's Almanac, so I can find them when I want them (in order by favor, not by date - the top is my most favorite - the last is still a favorite, and by no means least, there are no duds in this list, but still there are favorites I can listen to daily, and favorites I'd like to revisit once a month or once a year):

(Returning to Earth by Jim Harrison - funny, brilliant, philosophical in the best sense, insightful. I could start each day with this one.)
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2008/12/11

(Coming out of Walmart by Mark DeFoe - a heavenly poem, a moment of grace.)
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2008/12/22

(Waking From Sleep by Robert Bly - marvelous poem. I do not completely understand it, but it tells of a distant shore my heart yearns for.)
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2008/12/23

(Song of Wonderful Surprise by Kelly Cherry - a nature poem that transcends being a nature poem; it is actually an existential poem, and one of the loveliest ones ever at that.)
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2008/12/29

(Proposals by Cecillia Woloch - wow, Garrison Keillor is on a roll! At this rate I'm going to be listing just about all of them! But, in any case, this one cannot be missed, it is about identity, a mystery of life...and it is rich with wry humor.)
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2008/12/30

(Sonnet for Mary by Ralph Edwards - Both sad and wonderful, a sonnet! It's not strictly pentameter, and it's actually fourteen heroic couplets...so it's not the rhyme scheme we expect - but I quibble...it's still a sonnet, and it's still wonderful.)
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2008/01/09

(Black Dog by James DenBoer - lest anyone suspect I only like poems with great words or humor or positive humanistic themes, here's one that is bare bones, does not moralize, has an ambiguous ending I don't understand yet and, while not "pretty", is quite compelling.)
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2008/01/06

(Great Depression Story by Claudia Emerson - striking, chilling, heart-wrenching, gorgeous.)
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2008/12/08

(At Sea by Wendy Mnookin - brief, intense, superb, a glimpse deep into all human hearts)
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2008/12/15

(A Christmas Poem by William Miller - if drunks disgust you, you may find this poem aversive...or it may change your mind a little...not that I enjoy drunks, but I did enjoy this poem...we all have to struggle through life somehow; some seem to do it better than others, some get it handed to them by fortune, some get drunk, but we all can share in love.)
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2008/12/21

(Cardinals by John L. Stanizzi - a love poem, universal and intensely personal at the same time, captures an experience most humans have, at least once in their lives, differently and yet identically, defining something essential in the human condition)
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2008/12/17

(In Passing by Ted Kooser - read on Writer's Almanac on my birthday, I was curious to see what it would be. It is a superb poem, about shyness and pain and hope, and I thought it suited me well.)
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2008/12/27

(The Conjugation of the Paramecium by Muriel Rukheyser - fascinating, very subtle, very deep once you penetrate the subtlety, and I must admit it helps to know some microbiology and the miracle of conjugation - but on the other hand she gives you the essentials.)
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2008/12/15