Literative

July is what you meant when you promised yourself that this summer you would get back to that project and make some real progress. But it’s sooo hot. Here's a strategy that can help you get started and enter a flow state. Try it as a writing exercise or let April guide you through a meditation. Happy doing! Resources: Fiore, Neil.  The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastina...

Today I'm delighted to introduce my first guest speaker, professor and theater director Leslie Reidel. Leslie shares his strategy of using Shakespeare's sonnets as training exercises for professional and student actors. Resources: Shakespeare, William. Sonnet 29 ("When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes"). https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45106/sonnet-116-let-me-not-to-the-marriage-of-t...

This poem has been illustrated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Arthur Rackham. It has been framed as a children's book, a warning about consumerism and addiction, a cautionary tale about sex, a Christian allegory about sin and redemption, and a feminist fable about sisterly solidarity. It’s even made a truly bizarre appearance in Playboy Magazine!  Welcome to the weird world of Christina Rosset...

June is the month of midsummer magic. Celebrate the solstice with us as we read W. B. Yeats’ poem “The Stolen Child” and leave the mundane world behind. Resources: Hughes, Edward Robert. “Midsummer Eve.”  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Edward_Robert_Hughes_-_Midsummer_Eve_(1908c).jpg McKennitt, Loreena. “The Stolen Child.” Elemental, Quinlan Road, 1985. Composed by Loreena...

This is a test of the public library system and American democracy. This is only a test. To prevent an actual emergency, please stay on the line for the following public service announcement and support your local library. Resources: American Library Association.  https://www.ala.org/ ·     Advocacy & Issues: https://www.ala.org/advocacy ·  &nb...

April showers bring May flowers, along with longer days, warmer nights, and constant birdsong. So why are poets in such a mood about spring?  Maybe because all that new life is hard to take when you’re grieving a loss or coping with change. Now that we’re well into May, might we look back and agree with T. S. Eliot?  Was April the cruelest month? Resources: Braganza, V. M....

Peak bloom is brief, for humans and for cherry trees. How should we value what comes after beauty? William Shakespeare, Ada Limon, and W. B. Yeats have some thoughts. Celebrate the end of National Poetry Month and Poem in Your Pocket Day with us! Resources: Limón, Ada. “Instructions on Not Giving Up.”  The Carrying (Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 2018). Copyright © 2018 by Ada Limón. Re...

Today we discuss W. H. Auden's poem "September 1, 1939," by way of Georgi Gospodinov's award-winning novel Time Shelter, and Auden's message for uncertain and fearful times. There is no such thing as the State And no one exists alone; Hunger allows no choice To the citizen or the police; We must love one another or die. Image: Unsplash/Library of Congress Resources: Auden, W. H.  “September 1...

Literative is celebrating the official start of National Poetry Month, the 30th anniversary celebration of poetry's influence on our daily lives. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and T.S. Eliot’s The Waste-Land both take place in April, as does William Shakespeare's birthday. But April 1st is also April Fool’s Day, so today we'll read some poetry that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Or perhaps,...

April is National Poetry Month, and today we're discussing poems that help us understand, manage, and recover from anxiety dreams. We'll compare Edgar Allan Poe's "A Dream within a Dream" and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "The Pains of Sleep" to help us distinguish an anxiety dream from a nightmare. We'll use the opening lines of Endymion by John Keats to explore a strategy for restoring calm after a...

Valentine's Day is stressful. It demands big public gestures and celebrates romance while ignoring other kinds of love. But not here at Literative. Today we’ll read several poems that explore the complexity of love, all kinds of love, and we'll make Valentine’s Day safe for introverts and single people. Resources Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets from the Portuguese. Robert Hayden, “Those W...

Today we continue our Normal Plus series with Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way and the morning pages, a powerful tool for clearing your mind, outrunning your inner Censor, and unblocking your creativity. Resources Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity Julia Cameron Live Tara Mohr, Playing Big: Practical Wisdom for Women Who Want to Speak Up, Create, and Lead Poetry...

Today we remember Renee Nicole Good through poetry: her own award-winning poem from 2020 and new poems by Cornelius Eady and Amanda Gorman. Renee Nicole Good Poem: "On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs" About Renee Nicole Good: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/we-had-whistles-they-had-guns-says-wife-of-minnesota-woman-killed-by-ice-agent Cornelius Eady Poem: "Renee Nicole Good is Murdered" About C...

Welcome to 2026 and Season 2 of Literative! We begin the new year by reading Joy Harjo's "For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet," a poem about loss and restoration, about wandering and welcome. Joy Harjo reminds us to treat our spirit like a beloved child and celebrate its recovery by helping those still searching.  Be sure to join us in January for our New Ye...

Year's end is a busy festive time, but it can also be a sad and lonely one for people who are grieving a loss.  If you’re having a Blue Christmas this year, this episode is for you. We'll read several passages from the poem In Memoriam in which Alfred, Lord Tennyson reveals the journey that enabled him to write, "’Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all."...

In the first season of Literative, we learned that we need to make some space for inspiration and serendipity. In Season 2, our motto for January is "Normal Plus," borrowed from Sophie Kinsella's novel What Does It Feel Like? This thinly fictionalized novel recounts Kinsella's own battle with brain cancer; instead of a bucket list, the heroine adopts a strategy of "normal plus," upgrading her ordi...

Happy birthday, Jane Austen! We're celebrating with a field trip to Winchester Cathedral, where Austen is buried, and Jane Austen's House in Chawton, where she spent the last years of her life. Resources: Jane Austen's House , Chawton, UK Smart, Stephanie. The House of Embroidered Paper Winchester Cathedral, Winchester, UK Woolf, Virginia. "Jane Austen." Worsley, Lucy. Jane Austen at Home: A Biogr...

I've been derailed in the best possible way, by discovering a book that I could not put down: The Betrayal of Anne Frank , by Rosemary Sullivan. I share my personal history with Anne Frank, some provocative ideas from Sullivan's book, and one surprising connection to Jane Austen. I also take this opportunity to remember theater director and educator Yatesy Harvey and playwright Tom Stoppard. Comin...

It's December, the holiday season has officially begun, and it's time to simplify our schedule! Today we reflect and reset with less regret for the past and more hope for the future, with a little help from Elinor and Marianne Dashwood ( Sense and Sensibility ) and Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Works Cited Austen, Jane. Sense and Sensibility. Shelley, Percy Bysshe. "England in 1819." ---. "O...

This season we're celebrating 250 years of Jane Austen, and she needs a proper introduction. We talk about her family and how they've helped and hindered our understanding of "Dear Aunt Jane." We discover how Austen's difficulties with publication helped her become a more confident and experimental writer, and we learn why there's no one to touch Jane when you're in a tight place. Sources and Link...

What do Jane Austen and John Keats have in common? Winchester! We're subverting our semester on Austen to wish John Keats a happy birthday and explore two of his poems, "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" and "To Autumn." Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

April Kendra welcomes you to Literative and uses Adrienne Rich's essay "As If Your Life Depended On It" to explain the purpose of the podcast. This first season celebrates 250 years of Jane Austen! We'll explore the life, novels, and enormous influence of Jane Austen, with a special birthday episode on December 16. Join us! Note: We've changed the schedule since the recording of this trailer. We'l...