"The aim of poetry is to awaken us to a fuller sense of our own humanity in both its social and individual aspects. . . . Poetic language . . . is holistic and experiential. Poetry simultaneously addresses our intellect and our physical senses, our emotions, imagination, intuition, and memory without asking us to divide them."
-Dana Gioia, "Poetry as Enchantment"
This episode begins a short run devoted to poems and the poets that pen them. As I've confessed before recording with a few recent guests, I myself don't "speak poetry," that is, I don't have all the technical terminology or conceptual capacities as might a seasoned reader, teacher, or practitioner of the craft. Nonetheless, I do read poetry, and have always had an intuitive sense of its high worth. And there is something of an advantage to being a truly amateurish reader of the art form, namely, I'm not encumbered or weighed down with unnecessary and cumbersome jargon or analytical preoccupations.
Also, without fail, these guests have communicated how poetry is meant for the many, how it should speak to everything in our experience from the mundane to the sacred, or even how within the mundane lies the sacred.
And so, I'm very happy to introduce my guest for this episode, A. M. Juster, an award-winning and highly regarded poet, translator, and critic. His most recent books include John Milton's The Book of Elegies, Saint Aldhelm's Riddles, and Sleaze & Slander. His first book of original poetry, The Secret Language of Women, won the Richard Wilbur Award. And he has also won the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award on three separate occasions.
Juster has a new book of verse just recently published, titled Wonder and Wrath, from Paul Dry Book, which you can find by clicking through today's show notes. Here he is talking about what got him writing poetry.
Links
- Wonder and Wrath by A. M. Juster
- A. M. Juster's website
- Saint Aldhelm's Riddles, translated by A. M. Juster
- "Regard the Scuttlebutt as True" by Paul Mariani, First Things, June 2010. An essay revealing the dual lives of A. M. Juster, as well as providing an introduction to his poetry
- "The Riddle of Why Literary Riddles are Overlooked" by A. M. Juster, Athenaeum Review, Summer 2020
- "Poetry as Enchantment" by Dana Gioia
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit curiouscatholicpodcast.substack.com
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