Versecraft

Topics mentioned in this episode: -The use of the term “poetry” and the death of the genuine article -Building metrical literacy -My essay “The Iron Lyre” -Modern small-souledness -My essay “The Poisoned Well: Melville and Gnosticism” -My essay “The Monumentalist Manifesto” -“Science, Politics, and Gnosticism” by Eric Voegelin -“The Whiteness of the Whale” in Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” -“The Gn...

Text of poem  here Soundtrack to this episode  Topics discussed in this episode:  -The University of St. Thomas, Houston  -"The Flaming Heart" by Mario Praz -Giambattista Marino -Metaphysical vs. Baroque -The poetry of rapture -The Greek Anthology -Laudianism  -Crashaw's Teresa poems -Mixed meter and phantom beats -"Venus and Adonis" by Billy Shakes -The saintly grief in y...

Topics discussed in this episode include: - The MFA Program at the University of St. Thomas - My episode on Ryan’s poem “Disobedience” - "How to Think Like a Poet" by Ryan Wilson - Wiseblood Books -New editions of Dryden and Pope soon come! - “The Catholic Writer Today” by Dana Gioia -David Rothman - New Verse Review’s St. Thomas issue -“A Season in Hell” by Arthur Rimbaud -“Pure and Imp...

Topics discussed in this episode include: Wiseblood Books The University of St. Thomas MFA Program My episode on James Matthew Wilson "The Fortunes of Poetry in an Age of Unmaking" by James Matthew Wilson " The Wayward Thomist " by James Matthew Wilson The Complete Essays of J.V. Cunningham Jacques Maritain "Crime and Punishment" by Dostoevsky "La Vita Nuova&quot...

Topics discussed in this episode include: Matthew Buckley Smith over at SLEERICKETS Alice Allan over at Poetry Says and In Future Posts Ethan McGuire over at The Flummoxed Zina Gomez Liss over at The Beauty of Things Cameron Clark over at Minor Tiresias Rationalist, Socialist, Humanist, Bicameral Demo-Oligarchic Utopia? Ironkraft and Cheesecraft An incomplete list of people I envy: Kendrick Lamar,...

Poems/Prose Lyrics featured: "The Eagles" by Jones Very "The Oracles" by A.E. Housman "An Equation" by Hyam Plutzik "Plato and the Serpent" by Catherine Davis "Crow's Theology" by Ted Hughes "Changeling" by Rhina Espaillat "Hardy" by Robert Mezey "The Master of Metaphor" by Carl Dennis "Lust" by J.D. McC...

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 -...

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 great romance of death - "Sp...

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 his knowledge corresponds, riding the current of t...

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" by Timothy Steele -Sonnets don&ap...

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 entire text of The Darkening Ecliptic h...

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? -Translational hijinks ensue -Mosaic rhymes! Supp...

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 foretold: scentings of love across a wild...

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 jet and scope nor swings and sleeps Forever i...

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 Gerard Manley Hopkins episode My Mark Jarm...

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 VISIT MY WEBSITE HERE. BUY VERSECRAFT MERCH HERE . VISIT THE VERS...

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 VISIT MY WEBSITE HERE. BUY VERSE...

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 Christma...

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 Fourte...

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 generational eros...

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 identitarian poetry  Text of...

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 return like ghosts to move across the final night, r...

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" by Rachel Hadas -Prosimetra/Haibun -&q...

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 grosses Gestirn! Was wäre dein Glück, wenn du nich...

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 Principle -&quot...