Topics discussed in this episode: -Email me your questions!! -Cameron's substack, "Minor Tiresias" -My poem, "At Woodlawn" in Merion West -My poem, "Aztec Support" in Light -My episode on Learning the Secrets of English Verse -"Missing Measures" and "All the Fun's In How You Say A Thing" by Timothy Steele -De Sacra Poesi Hebraeorum -"Notes On Metre…

Soundtrack to this episode Text of poem here Send me your AMA questions for Versecraft 100! Topics discussed in this episode include: -Greatest Generation poets -"Because You Asked About the Line Between Prose and Poetry" by Howard Nemerov -"De Anima" by Aristotle -On loose iambics -The ghost of Sapphics -A transexual volta -Life engenders the grea…

Soundtrack to this episode Text of poem: Bird Watcher It returns to the same nest. The watcher lies beneath spring brushwood to await its coming– at watch so long he dreams himself becoming less than himself and more, the landscape’s eyes. Though far beyond his eyes, beyond the range of field-glasses, he knows it breaks no bonds: its instinct to hi…

Topics discussed in this episode include: -Go buy Learning the Secrets of English Verse! -The Monumentalist Manifesto -My episode, The Idea Of A Poetry Conservatory -Poetry as skill -The Fitzgerald system of scansion -Parallelism, Syllabics, Loose Iambics, Stress-counting, rhyme-driving, sprung rhythm, oh my! -"All the Fun's In How You Say A Thing"…

Soundtrack to this episode Text of poem Topics discussed include: -Your host has an identity crisis -RIP POETRY SAYS! -Listen to Alice on Milton and with me. -Moira Egan! -My Pindar essay -My Melville essay -The Iron Lyre! -Matthew, Alice, and I argue about The Iron Lyre -THE ERN MALLEY HOAX -The New York School and the Generation of '68 -Read the …

Soundtrack to this episode Link to translations Topics discussed: -Alice tackles Milton on Poetry Says -Check out my Substack here! -My episode on Ryan Wilson -My episode on Geoffrey Hill -The long and short of a long fellow -Longfellow's Dante -The Monster of Literature -Romance languages and hendecasyllabics -Faithful to which fidelity? -Translat…

Soundtrack to this episode Note: My use of the phrase "men without chests" and Matthew's were completely coincidental! Text of poem: Lachrimae Antiquae Novae Crucified Lord, so naked to the world, you live unseen within that nakedness, consigned by proxy to the judas-kiss of our devotion, bowed beneath the gold, with re-enactments, penances foretol…

Soundtrack to this episode Text of poem: Nor strange it is, to us who walk in bonds Of flesh and time, if virtue's self awhile Gleam dull like sunless ice; whilst graceful guile— Blood-flecked like hematite or diamonds With a red inward spark—to reconcile Beauty and evil seems and corresponds So well with good that the mind joys to have Full wider …

Soundtrack to this episode Read the text of the poem here Topics discussed in this episode include: The Iron Lyre: Poetry, Heavy Metal, and the New Sublime Alice and Elijah vs. The Abyss on SLEERICKETS Melissa Range! Aaron Baker! David Southward! "The Rhythms of English Poetry" by Derek Attridge My John Donne episode My George Herbert episode My Ge…

Topics discussed in this episode include: -Jewelcraft, Housecraft, Guitarcraft -The utilities of form -David Gilmour -The mysticism of scientific discovery -Technology: What is it good for? -Cosmic double-consciousness -Does a cosmic perspective lead to enlightenment or nihilism? -The functional aesthetics of Nature Support the show BUY VERSECRAFT …

Topics discussed in this episode include: -Simple Syrup -Why poetry? -Poetry vs. Music -David vs. Versecraft -My "What Is Art?" episode -The Case For Meter and Rhyme Part I -The Case For Meter and Rhyme Part II -The Case Against Versecraft by Matt Wall -"Cain" by Lord Byron -"Empedocles On Etna" by Matthew Arnold Support the show BUY VERSECRAFT MER…

Soundtrack to this episode Text of poem Topics discussed in this episode include: -New Critical Rococo -The Changing Light at Sandover -The Ingram Merrill Foundation -Shape poems -My George Herbert episode -"Pindarick Odes" -"Intimations of Immortality" by William Wordsworth -"Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold -"Santa Baby" by Eartha Kitt -What do Chr…

Soundtrack to this episode The original 10 Poems I Like "New Advances in Quitting Poetry" on SLEERICKETS "This is not Exactly What I Mean" on the SLEERICKETS Secret Show My Dante essay at Voegelin View! Poems discussed in this episode: "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" by W.B. Yeats "Miriam Tazewell" by John Crowe Ransom "I Will Put Chaos Into F…

Soundtrack to this episode Text of poem here Topics discussed in this episode include: -Sentimentality -National character -Philip Larkin, novelist: "Jill," and "A Girl in Winter" -"The Movement" movement -The Oxford Book of 20th Century English Verse -"Church-Going" by Philip Larkin -The blindness of historical consciousness -Temporal and generati…

Soundtrack to this episode Topics discussed in this episode include: -Listen to my talk on Melville here -Listen to my poetry reading with Dan Brown here -Outsider poetry -The Education of Henry Adams -Metrical hijinks -The inherent negations of blindness -"Durer: Insbrook, 1495" by Ern Malley -"Lycidas" by John Milton -Forging a new sensibility in…

Soundtrack to this episode Text of poem: The Last Act ‘Tis the god Hercules, whom Antony loved, Now leaves him. It is too often only close to death, or utter failure, when the mind is held to truth, we see the outlines of the gods, those whom we loved but never realized. Above us in a void burnt-out and cold, at unfamiliar heights their forms retur…

Soundtrack to this episode Link to poems! Read the Classical Outlook poetry issue here! NEW MERCH HERE To receive a link to the Critical Path Symposium, follow the email link at the bottom right of this page Topics discussed in this episode include: -Philip Walsh and Rachel Hadas! -The Classical Outlook! -Classical Reception Studies -"44 Pastorals"…

Als Zarathustra dreissig Jahr alt war, verliess er seine Heimat und den See seiner Heimat und ging in das Gebirge. Hier genoss er seines Geistes und seiner Einsamkeit und wurde dessen zehn Jahr nicht müde. Endlich aber verwandelte sich sein Herz,—und eines Morgens stand er mit der Morgenröthe auf, trat vor die Sonne hin und sprach zu ihr also: „Du …

Mea culpa: "The Neural Lyre" was published in 1983, not 1994. Don't know why I said that! Read today's poem here Topics discussed in this episode include: -William Paley's watchmaker analogy -Problems with teleological arguments -Brandon Carter's Anthropic Principle -Multiverse/many worlds theory -John Archibald Wheeler's Participatory Anthropic Pr…

Mea culpa: Apologies for my faint audio in the beginning! Soundtrack to this episode Second soundtrack, because... I had to. Topics discussed in this episode include: -Thom Gunn and some of his literary interests (Henry James, George Macdonald, Saki, Ovid, etc.) -My episode on Thom Gunn -My episode on Timothy Steele -Read The Classical Outlook!! -W…

Soundtrack to this episode (it's Stephen Kampa!) Topics discussed in this episode include: -Go read New Verse Review! -Go listen to my talk on SLEERICKETS about Horace's Ars Poetica! -Go listen to the mighty Fer de Lance! -The Sleerickets Stephen Kampa episode -Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason -From Transcendental Idealism to Transcendentali…

Soundtrack to this episode Topics discussed in this episode include: -Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray -Portrait of the artist in a digital world -The New York Times 100 Best Books of the 21st Century -The decline and fall of poetry -Four paths to pecuniary stability -My episode on Amit Majmudar -"Patronage" by Amit Majmudar -Te…

Soundtrack to this episode Topics discussed in this episode include: -The Beatles -Beatles documentary "Get Back" -"The Other Frost" by Randall Jarrell -"Robert Frost: or, the Spiritual Drifter as Poet" by Yvor Winters -"The Other Other Frost" by William Logan -"The Themes of Robert Frost" by Robert Penn Warren -"A History of Modern Poetry" by Davi…

Soundtrack to this episode For text of poem, please see episode transcript at versecraft.buzzsprout.com. Topics discussed in this episode include: -C'est Moi, MBS's response to my episode Giving the Devil His Due -My review of Matthew's book, "Midlife," entitled The Poet Laureate of Crushed Dreams -My episode on the Pathetic Fallacy with Matthew an…

Soundtrack to this episode Topics discussed in this episode include: -"The Roots of Romanticism" by Isaiah Berlin -The Jena Set and the Schlegels -"Rousseau and Romanticism" by Irving Babbitt -Harold Bloom -"Science, Politics, and Gnosticism" by Eric Voegelin -"Classic, Romantic, and Modern" by Jacques Barzun -Inferno IV and XXVI -Prometheus Bound …

Soundtrack to this episode Text of poem Topics discussed in this episode: -My sojourn in Gaul -ITER! -Atomic Fusion -The contemptible STEM/Humanities divide -Amit Majmudar! -Sleerickets Episode 144 -Amphibrachic hexameter -"The Birth of Tragedy" by Friedrich Nietzsche -The Solar Cycle -Apollo, the inverse Romantic -Homer's Odyssey -The myth of Daph…

COME OUT TO CLEVELAND June 13th to hear David, Matthew, and Ryan read! Soundtrack to this episode Topics discussed in this episode include: -Au revoir until June! -"The Birth of Tragedy" by Friederich Nietzsche -"The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde -"Pere Goriot" by Honore de Balzac -The aesthetic parasite -"And Which of Them In Time Would B…

Soundtrack to today's episode Topics discussed in this episode include: -"On Portents" by Robert Graves -"The White Goddess" by Robert Graves -"Life With The Real White Goddess" by Louis Simpson -Poetry Messiah Witch Cult -The Fugitives -Misadventures in polyamory -"A Survey of Modernist Poetry" by Riding & Graves -"The Cool Web" by Robert Graves -…

The soundtrack to today's episode Topics discussed in this episode: -Norman Finkelstein and Restless Messengers -Formal Poet Voltron At Loganberry Books!! Get over here! -Three great things: Literary Matters, 32 Poems, SLEERICKETS -Ma! I'm On Sleerickets! -Pre-12th century Medieval heroic poetry -Chivalry vs. Courtly Love -Slammin the canon -Dante …

Topics discussed in this episode include: -That famous soliliquy -"The Myth of Sisyphus" by Albert Camus -Inferno Canto XIII -"Orthodoxy" by G.K. Chesterton -The Catechism of the Catholic Church -Prayopavesa -Martyrs, Berserkers, Stoics and Samurai -"The Right To Die" by Paul Laurence Dunbar -"No" by A.M. Juster -"Resume" by Dorothy Parker Support …

Poems discussed on this episode include: "Are They Shadows" by Samuel Daniel "To Heaven" by Ben Jonson "The Kraken" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson "Aspecta Medusa" by Dante Gabriel Rossetti Sonnet VII by George Santayana "Rock and Hawk" by Robinson Jeffers "What Are Years" by Marianne Moore "My Son, My Executioner" by Donald Hall "Drought" by Catherine C…

Mea culpa: Sorry about the little skip in the concluding reading-- don't know why that happened. Text of the poem here. Topics discussed in this episode include: -"In Defense of Reason" by Yvor Winters -"A Winters Tale" on SLEERICKETS -"The Seriousness of Yvor Winters" by David Yezzi -"The Absolutist: Yvor Winters" by Jan Schreiber -"What You Need …

Topics discussed in this episode include: -RIP N. Scott Momaday -Gather ye old buds while ye may -32 Poems -David's new collection, Newly Not Eternal -"Iscariot's Psalm" by George David Clark -Read the earlier version of "Shiversong" here -The 'ol feminine-acephalous combo (we need a real name for this) -Not rhythmic, but METRICAL modulation -"The …

Text of poem here (Note: this is an older version, and some lines have changed). Topics discussed in this episode include: -My Ryan Wilson episode -My Mark Jarman episode -Ryan's corrections and very gracious explanation -The Contemporary Poetry Review -Jan's wonderfully kooky website -THINK Journal's Critical Path Symposium -The aquastentialist po…

Text of poem here. Topics discussed in this episode include: -Literary Matters -"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot -Buy Ryan's books, including his new collection, "In Ghostlight," here -"L'Estraneo" by Ryan Wilson -"On A Baroque Wall Fountain in the Villa Sciarra" by Richard Wilbur -"The Gardens of the Villa D'Este" by Anthony Hec…

Topics discussed in this episode include: -"A Retrospect" and "A Few Don'ts By An Imagiste" by Ezra Pound -A ruinous misunderstanding of meter and music -"Intellectual-emotional complex" and unified sensibility -"The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry" by Ernest Fenollosa -The ideogrammatic method -Kiru, Wabi-Sabi, and Mono no Aware (…

Mea culpa: Yes, I know "Sailing to Byzantium" was written like 20 years after "Conversion." By the time I realized my anachronism, it was too late. Something something Borges retroactive influence... Topics discussed in this episode include: -Mary Renault's "The King Must Die." -Decadence begets Primitivism -Gauguin, Picasso, Stravinsky -Gustave Ka…

Topics discussed in this episode include: -What is Modernism? -Various dichotomies -The French origins of Modernism -Charles Baudelaire and the Decadent movement -Stephane Mallarme and Symbolism/Impressionism -Eliot, Laforgue, Corbiere, and "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" -Hugo vs. Baudelaire -Edgar Poe's "The Philosophy of Composition" and "…

Topics discussed in this episode include: -Order George David Clark's new book, Newly Not Eternal here! -Order John Wall Barger's new book, The Elephant of Silence here! -On the necessity of verse translation, feat. Bob and Paul -Metaphrase and Paraphrase -The Blumov Method of translation -Jacques Barzun's An Essay On French Verse -Romanticism in R…

Text of poem here. Topics discussed in this episode include: -Midlife by Matthew Buckley Smith -The Penguin Book of Greek and Latin Lyric Verse by Christopher Childers -Khosrow and Shirin by Dick Davis -In Ghostlight by Ryan Wilson -A Gaze Hound That Hunteth By The Eye by Penelope Pelizzon -The Nature of Things Fragile by Peter Vertacnik -My poem T…

Mea culpa re line 8: I confusedly combined both possible readings-- this is either acephalous hexameter or first foot anapest iambic pentameter. Topics discussed in this episode include: -Write to me about classes! -The Error by Don Paterson -Idealism, Nominalism, Transcendental critique -Plato, Plotinus, Ockham, Kant -Paterson's band, Lammas -His …

Mea culpa: Several times I refer to "Sunlight" as "Sunshine." Blame it on the LSD (which was called "Orange Sunshine"). Text of poem here Topics discussed in this episode include: -Let me know what you think I should teach! -On The Morning Of Christ's Nativity by John Milton -The Gas Poker by Thom Gunn -The Movement -Syllabics as gateway drug -Lucy…

Text of poem here. Topics discussed in this episode include: -The universecraft -Shout out to the Aussies! -Tim Tams SLAM, y'all -Alice Allan, Poetry Says, and our episode on Gwen Harwood -The Australian Augustans: Hope, McAuley, Stewart -Paul Valery's "Le Cimitiere Marin" -Tertius paeon reviewed -The ocean motif, and my episodes on JMW's Through t…

Songs discussed in The Rainbow Mythos include: Tarot Woman (lyrics here) Rainbow Eyes (lyrics here) Catch The Rainbow (lyrics here) The Man On The Silver Mountain (lyrics here) The Temple Of The King (lyrics here) Stargazer (lyrics here) A Light In The Black (lyrics here) Topics discussed include: Brian Brodeur's new book, Some Problems With Autobi…

Text of poem here Topics discussed in this episode include: -Romanticism, Modernism, and The Lyric -Defining ourselves against the vices of our age -Historical problems with Lyric -Modernism as pharmakon -T.S. Eliot's essay, Andrew Marvell -T.S. Eliot's essay, The Metaphysical Poets -Marvell's Horatian Ode -Marvell's Country House poem, Upon Applet…

Text of poem here Topics discussed in this episode include: -The Stafford Challenge -The Kiowa people -Frederick Goddard Tuckerman -Winters and Bowers -"The Death Of Sitting Bear" -"House Made Of Dawn" -"The Way To Rainy Mountain" -The Native American Renaissance -Mixed meter, mixed KINDS of meter -Remember, catalexis = without final unaccented syl…

Text of poem here Mea culpa: When I said "fearful," I meant "fearsome" L'esprit d'escalier: "Above the boneyard burn its golden eyes" has a similar euphony to Donne's famous: "A bracelet of bright hair about the bone." Topics discussed in this episode include: -Anthony Hecht's new Collected Poems, edited by Philip Hoy -David Yezzi's new biography o…

Text of poem here. Mea culpa: Please read "tercets" for "triplets" Topics discussed in this episode include: -J.V. Cunningham (see my episode on him here) -The Tribe of Ben (Jonson) -Check out Dan's books here! -The Swallow Anthology of New American Poets -Accentual or Accentual-Syllabic? -Macro-rhythmic modulation -The soul of wit? -My episode on …

Text of poem here Topics mentioned in this episode include: -Jungenstil, The Vienna Secession, The Belle Epoque -Leonie Adams (see my episode on her here) -The hard-hearted bravado of early 20th century American poetry by women -The double twist of the hybrid sonnet -Spondees and dactyls -Theodore Roethke (see my episode on him here) -"Ode On The D…

Read our four poems here. (Note: The file may take a while to load!) Topics mentioned in this episode include: -My David Yezzi episode -Ryan Wilson -Three kinds of formal poets: puzzle solvers, natural rhymers, aesthetes -Paul Celan -Literary Matters -John Berryman's "Dream Songs" -Wait Until Dark -Object Permanence (here's Matthew's poem on the su…