Inspired by Tracy K. Smith's Pulitzer Prize-winning tribute to David Bowie, we asked for your poem about the rock star or other teen idol who captured your imagination — as a teenager or now.  Smith is back into the studio to pick a winner.

It’s the first poem about David Bowie to win the Pulitzer Prize. Tracy K. Smith’s collection Life on Mars contains many references to the man she salutes as the “Pope of Pop." Smith admits she became “kind of obsessed” with Bowie’s extraterrestrial alter ego Ziggy Stardust late. He seemed ...

Poem: "Don't You Wonder Sometimes"

An epic poem written more than 2,000 years ago by a Roman named Lucretius may be one of Western culture's most profound examples of art anticipating scientific discovery and modern thought. The poem is called "On the Nature of Things", and it presents all kinds of radical philosophical ...

New York City's East Village was once a vigorous and diverse community of poets, including Allen Ginsberg, Frank O'Hara, Ted Berrigan, and Anne Waldman. A new audio tour of the neighborhood captures the characters, sounds, and memories ...

When Studio 360 contributor and science reporter Ari Daniel Shapiro visited at the Japanese Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology last winter, he met Dhugal Lindsay.  The Australian researcher explores the deep seas using robotic submersibles carrying video cameras and sampling equipment.  And he's given names to some of the species he's found.

Last week, the Library of Congress named Philip Levine the country’s 18^th poet laureate of the United States, succeeding W.S. Merwin.  “He’s the laureate, if you like, of the industrial heartland,” librarian of Congress James Billington said of Levine. “It’s a very, very American voice. I don’t know that in other countries you get poetry of that quality about the ordinary workingman.”

The political and military chaos in Libya is about to enter its sixth month. As the rebels wage war against Muammar Gaddafi from their capital in Benghazi, and NATO air strikes continue to target his forces, subtler forms of protest that don't make...

For his novel, The Tragedy of Arthur, Arthur Philips wrote an entire play that was a forgery of Shakespeare. (He described the creative process in his interview with Kurt Andersen last week.) We asked our listeners to get in on the act, and take a stab at a fake Shakespearean...

Outstanding Forgeries: Listen to the winning sonnets

What’s it like to practice the same line of work as your spouse? What if you’re both writers, but one is a novelist — in love with plot and character — and one is a poet — obsessed with words? Novelist Naeem Murr wrote about that marriage for the Poetry Foundation. We brought him together with his wife, Averill Curdy, for both sides of the story.

This month we're celebrating 360's first decade on the air with the publication of the book Spark: How Creativity Works, by long-time Studio 360 executive producer Julie Burstein. In the book, scores of America's greatest filmmakers, writers, musicians and artists give readers an inside look at their creative processes and inspiration.

This week, Kurt and Julie discuss three different artists who confronted unique challenges and turned them into art: photographer Joel Meyerowitz, poet Donald Hall, and playwright Lynn Nottage.

Listen to full interviews with Donald Hall, Joel Meyerowitz, and Lynn Nottage.

The ongoing protests in Egypt are sparking more then just political and social unrest; the events in Tahrir Square are also inspiring new cultural creations. Egyptian poet and Georgetown University Visiting Professor Tamim al-Barghouti wrote a poem about the protests – roughly translated “Oh Egypt, It’s Close."

Poet Kevin Young usually tackles themes we can all relate to - family drama, losing a friend, food. He shifts course with his new book, a historical epic poem about the Amistad slave rebellion.

Jeffrey Yang spends a lot of time studying marine life. But he's not a biologist working on the beach. He's a poet who loves visiting his local aquarium. In his new book, An Aquarium, killer whales, eels, and fish become symbols of politics and mythology. Produced ...

Our extended cut of Kurt's conversation with Patti Smith, including three things you didn’t know about the rock legend: 1) mother turned her on to poetry; 2) writes detective stories; 3) enthusiastic golfer.

One of the highlights of new releases in poetry this fall is a long poem by John Shade that begins with the remarkable line “I was the shadow of the waxwing slain.” It’s all the more remarkable because John Shade does not exist.

How did Emily Dickinson's unusual poem about death become standard high school curriculum? Studio 360 takes a closer reading at a literary masterpiece.

On the Origin of Species is 150 years old, but the work of Charles Darwin remains as influential as ever. Darwin's great-great-granddaughter, Ruth Padel, tells her famous ancestor's life story all in verse. One poem describes Darwin's awe at the sealife that washed up ...

Padel reads from her collection, Darwin: A Life in Poems.

In his book, The Age of Wonder, Richard Holmes describes the major breakthroughs in astronomy, anthropology, and physics in late 18th and early 19th century Britain. Holmes calls the era an "age of romantic science" - when the poets and scientists inspired each other's work.