Versecraft
Exploring the art of poetry through the craft of some of the world's best but most underrated poems.
Episodes
Text of poem HERE
No more Versecraft until October! Sorry :(
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Topics discussed in this episode include:
-Matthew comes for my prosodic neck (mea culpa: his reading was first foot trochee, feminine ending).
-Rabbi Neil Blumofe brings up Pirkei Avot
-Susan Spear and Catherine Chandler
-Yezzi's new Anthony Hecht biography, Late Romance
-Matthew interviews David here
-Yezzi's new Selected, More Things In Heav...
Text of poem here.
Order Versecraft merch here!
Topics discussed in this episode include:
-Matthew's new book, Midlife!
-Joshua Mehigan and his books, The Optimist and Accepting the Disaster
-Josh's interview on SLEERICKETS
-American Naturalism
-Josh's poem Down In the Valley
-Sponges 101
-Parapraxis, aka "The Freudian slip"
-Venice by Herman Melville
-The gang and I talk The Pathetic Fallacy on SLEERICKETS
-Moni...
Topics discussed in this episode include:
E.M. Forster
“The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam” by Edward Fitzgerald
Thomas Hardy
W.H. Auden
“Troilus and Criseyde” by Geoffrey Chaucer
“Vis and Ramin” by Gorgani
“Wisdom and Wilderness” by Dick Davis
Thom Gunn
Yvor Winters
Fulke Greville
Edgar Bowers
Mozart vs. Haydn
“The Creation” by Joseph Haydn
“Requiem” by W.A. Mozart
“Symphony 9” by Franz Schubert
“Requiem” by Michael Haydn
The Creative and the Erotic
Th...
Buy Versecraft merch HERE
Read text of poem HERE
Topics discussed in this episode include:
-No Versecraft next week! :(
-On late-bloomers in poetry
-What Krishna meant
-The life-changing power of the unicorn tapestries
-The Amy Clampitt Residency Program and Virginia Konchan
-The "Tails To Heads" Maneuver.
-"The Eumenides" by Aeschylus
-We're gonna need to see some Id
Order Versecraft merch HERE
Topics discussed in this episode include:
-Varieties of Modernism: The Big Six
-Formalism and Cosmic Rebellion
-Wilbur's audacious sanity
-The Idea Of Literary Celebrity At Key West
-Accent vs. Stress
-Measuring my stress levels
-And isn't it ionic... don't you think?
-The temptation to see ourselves in Nature
-"I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud" by William Wordsworth
Get Versecraft merch HERE!
Topics discussed in this episode include:
-"T.S. Eliot: The Illusion of Reaction" by Yvor Winters
-Les poetes maudites Tristan Corbiere et Jules Laforgue
-When Eliot was taken to Pound town
-The objective correlative and its problems
-This is basically what East Coker is
-The "Logic" of Imagery (Crane: "Well, one of us is going to have to change!")
-Nancy Drew And The Curious Case...
Topics discussed in this episode include:
-Encountering the phantom of Crane
-VERSECRAFT HAS SHIRTS NOW!! BUY HERE
-The lamentable pedigree of the poete maudit
-Life Savers!
-Why isn't there a movie yet about Harry Crosby?
-Nothing says Guggenheim fellowship like some tropical adultery
-Neo-Romantics revisited
-The "Logic of Metaphor" and Logonautics
-Poets as caretakers of language
-Cubic symmetry!
-Rhymed vs. Blank verse
...
The missing word at 23:18 is "ironically"
Topics discussed in this episode include:
-My thanks to Heights Arts for the feature!
-Hopkins and Bridges: name a more iconic duo.
-Sprung Rhythm vs. Syllabics
-Bridges' whacky work of logometry, Milton's Prosody
-18th century in the streets, 19th century in the sheets
-Iambic tetrameter couplets and the Hallmark effect
-No more unqualified ahistorical scansions! Me...
Topics discussed in this episode include:
-Fallout from last week
-The poetry-prose spectrum, and those pesky in-betweeners
-Amphibrachs for days
-Parallelism, and how to sound "biblical"
-The universal accessibility of beauty
-Rain on a sunny day is called WHAT?
-The feminization of landscape
-Hopefully the only time I'll mention Kanye on this show.
-Hopkins cameo!
-Totally tubular priests
-If it ain't Baroque...
-My excur...
Apologies for the sirens around the thirteen minute mark. I should've stopped up my mic with wax!
Topics discussed in this episode include:
-Welcome back everyone!!
-A litany of my recent international escapades
-Spoiler: Poetry is Versecraft (cue flame war)
-Problem 1: Non-metrical gatekeeping
-Problem 2: The mystical word-sorcerors want their poetry back
-Descriptive vs. Prescriptive definitions (an MBS favori...
Topics discussed in this episode include:
-Versecraft will be on hiatus in June. See you again in July!
-The wonderful educational resources available to Classical musicians
-The not-so-wonderful educational resources available to poets
-Why MFA programs don't cut it
-If creative writing "can't be taught" then poetic education becomes a joke
-No standards = total subjectivity = no legitimate curricula
-Recieved techni...
Topics discussed in this episode include:
-Matthew's episode A Winter's Tale Pt. 2
-Alice's episode Grilling Elijah Blumov
-Why Metal is NOT Rock
-"Black Sabbath" by Black Sabbath
-"Mars, The Bringer of War" by Gustav Holst
-Neoclassical Metal and Symphonic Metal
-Portrait of the Artist As A Young Dork
-"Stand Up And Fight" by Turisas
-"Twilight of the Thunder God" by Amon Amarth
Tech woes: Audio cuts out briefly at 11:56. Sorry!
Topics discussed in this episode include:
-Please send all your John Forbes and Jane Kenyon hate mail to Alice at poetrysayspod@gmail.com
-My upcoming Poetry Says episode on Gwen Harwood and my role as the prosodic gadfly/mustache-twirling villain of contemporary poetry.
-Read my poem "The Virtue of Corinthian Columns" here .
Tech woes: There's some static at 10:36 where I say "end rhyme." Sorry!
Topics discussed in this episode include:
-Wonderful exchanges with David, Robert , Quartez , Jack, Cameron , and Kevin.
-The Iowa Writer's Workshop
-Philip Levine's The Bread of Time
-Rhythmic modulations (a spondee it ain't!)
-This is the literary device. This is the moment. This is anaphora.
Mea culpa: Line 9 also differs from lines 2 and 13 by containing a first foot trochaic substitution.
Topics discussed in this episode include:
-Listen to my new episode with Matthew here !
-Check out Ethan McGuire's work here and here.
-Check out Brian Brodeur's work here.
-The Black Arts Movement
-Brooks vs. Hayden
-ANOTHER hybrid sonnet?? (No!)
-Rhythmic motifs
-William Cowper's Light Shining Out of Darkness , T...
Content Warning: Abortion, dead fetuses
Mea culpa: Ugh, I should've said "volta italiana." What a philistine I am.
Topics discussed in this episode include:
-Lake View Cemetery and the Haserot Angel
-Getting called out from beyond the grave
-My Great-Uncle, Elton Glaser
-Buy Brian's latest book: Some Problems With Autobiography
-Wins and almost-wins in The K...
Note: At the 19:27 mark, a word cuts out. That word is "specious!"
Topics discussed in this episode include:
-Make symposia happen!
-Hey mom, I'm on Sleerickets !
-Also on Sleerickets here !
-The Inhumanism of Robinson Jeffers
-Aspects of Metaphysical Poetry
-The 20th century Donne revival
-T.S. Eliot's essay The Metaphysical Poets
-The Dissociation of Sensibility
-Intellect as decoration
-The life and times...
PSA: No Versecraft next week! Sorry :( Also, the audio is a little crackly in the beginning, but smooths out after a few minutes.
Topics discussed in this episode include:
-Why the 1920's be like that
-The Modernist rogues gallery
-Flapper Poet Girl Gang
-The Neo-Romantics
-Contribute to the Make Versecraft A Legitimate Side Hustle Fund
-Hag Pesach Sameach, y'all
-Who knew 1899-1988 was such a tongue twister?
-Jesus Louises! (...
Topics discussed in this episode include:
-Robinson revisited
-Sorry Matthew, it looks like I actually have the more controversial podcast.
-You can listen to the Comedy Central Roast of Versecraft here.
-The paradox of relativism
-How (evaluative) Lit Crit works
-Ernest's Heavy Metal poem
-Buy Ernest's new book here
-The Hilbertian sonnet
-A New Formalist style
-The horror of logistics
-Late Summertime Blues
...
Topics discussed in this episode include:
-Quotable comebacks
-My listeners down under!
-Everyone should know about Ern Malley
-A hearty thanks to my very first patrons!
-You too can nourish the fiscal integrity of the show here.
-Candidate for American poetry GOAT, Edwin Arlington Robinson.
-Adventurer, soldier, and fairy god-fan Kermit Roosevelt.
-The Tom Bradys of the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry
-Killer Robinson poems Aunt Imogen, Remb...
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