Wacky Poem Life

Episode 126: Down the Dirt Roads is a different WPL episode, as Bill is out of town, and Shaun welcomes Faith Phillips, author of a book that will be the first one in the poetry museum's fall CRIME, SHE SAID book club. We discuss growing up and walking down the dirt roads in Oklahoma and a true crime case here that she wrote the book Now I Lay Me Down about. The book will soon be a multi-episode t...

Episode 125: Swept Away in a Sweeping Sweep takes you on a journey through three poems recently left in the museum. Discussions about the muses, the sport of curling, line graphs, and more ensure.

Episode 124: The Cryptids are Coming! Rot-ro! It’s true, Scooby Doo, the 2025 exhibit at the Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry will be about cryptids, the hidden creatures of our imagination, folklore . . . and occasionally, real life! Shaun and Bill discuss Bigfoot, Chuck Norris (not a cryptid . . . or . . . hmm) and more in this episode.

Episode 123: On Not Vegetating in an Earth Corner takes Mark Twain's advice about travel and applies it to . . . traveling! and poetry! and pigs on the beach! and . . . well, just give it a listen!

Episode 122: Closets I Have Known is certainly about closets. Would we steer you wrong? Sweep you away? Lock you in? It's also about brooms and witches. And brooms. Sweep. Sweep. Sweep. Poetry and bad jokes, of course, abound.

Shaun & Bill are joined by Gallery America's Robert Reid on a journey through couplets, spells, curses, advice, empty truck beds, limericks, and lots of stuff about barns. Also, we offer you tips on how to handle advice from 3-year-old Kate and her tent sign.

Episode 120: Magical Petri Dish steers you headlong into a discussion of community message boards and the poetry and tragedy therein. Get ready to laugh or suffer or both. 

Episode 199: The Mystery of the Second Person explores the case of the floating, ambiguous, ethereal, significant, impactful, and multifarious "YOU." If you don't know what we mean, YOU are who we mean. Yeah, something like that.

Episode 118: Cardi B Poetry isn’t about her, but it’s a shameless attempt to get people to this website to listen to 30-frickin’ minutes of high-class entertainment about cards, not WAP. Yep, you read that right: CARDS. GREETING CARDS. It’s something people used to do. And verse ensued and some poetry, too . . . sometimes, not too often . . . but here and there.

Episode 117: What the Nose Knows explores the olfactory element of our lives, as it is found in poetry and in the wild and perhaps in wild poetry. We have a variety of smell tests, some bad couplets, and a few wonderful poems by Crystal Wilkinson, William Carlos Williams, and Emily Dickinson. Follow your nose and let your ears enjoy this 1/2 hour of nasal knowing.

Episode 116: Bony Sodden Hulk features your favorite February furry creature, the groundhog, just in time for Groundhog Day. No, he's not a bony sodden hulk . . . well, not yet anyway. We'll all be there someday. Please to enjoy this entry with groundhog poems and lore and a wonderful impromptu limerick from Bill!

Episode 115: Bring on the Belly Laughs celebrates Global Belly Laugh Day with poems by Billy Collins and a special hairdresser/jill of all trades guest Sandy.

Episode 114: Poetry Out Loud & Zesty takes you into the world of poetry memorization and recitation, but wait, don’t run away . . . It’s an entertaining episode, too, wherein Shaun cracks Bill up and vice versa and the sublime and the ridiculous interact, as is the way that life is supposed to work after all.

Episode 113: Boldly Fruity is a potpourri episode where hosts Bill and Shaun walk in not knowing what the other is going to discuss. A paper bag full of gum, a writer's toolkit, various poems and barbarism ensue. 

Episode 112: Here you shall learn all you would want to know about messages in a bottle, or at least, a lot of cool stuff about them. Throw one in the Crutchfield Relief beside the poetry museum, and we'll be happy! Sign up with NASA and send your name in a bottle to Jupiter with a poem by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limon!

Episode 111: Purrrfectly Familiar delves into the concept of the witch's familiar and the various animals that have served this purpose, or at least, served it in someone's eyes enough to make the woman A WITCH! Crocodiles, ferrets and hedgehogs are all welcome, along with the traditional cats.

Episode 110: Make Art--Eat Cereal takes you on a journey to a child's yard sale art stand to the origins of  creativity, into cereal and foxes with tails on fire and creative play as a necessary component of everyone's lives. All in 30 frickin' minutes. Be in awe.

Episode 109: Feeding Two Birds with One Scone answers the age-old question of why we ever considered killing them instead. Tune in to hear how the poetry of language shall be ignored to our utter destruction as a civilization. Or just listen to the bad jokes.

Episode 108: Potpourri for $200, Alex is our first potpourri episode, wherein neither host knows what the other is going to discuss before recording starts. Thus, you will hear about A.E. Houseman, Edwin Way Teale and nature poetry and the case for the poet/Jack the Ripper suspect. A potpourri for the senses!

Episode 107: The Voluptuous Texture of Spells takes us into Wendy the Good Witch's Chant Closet at the Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry, where we explore 3 chants left by visitors and also discuss wart spells and brooms and Hecate. All in 30-frickin' minutes. It's incredible, really.

Episode 106: Barbie Boxed In delves into the shadow box art tradition, particularly those created by artist and podcast co-host Bill Guthrie for the Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry's current exhibit Her Kind: The Witch in History, Popular Culture & Poetry. We chant about ekphrastic poetry and Barbie dolls, sailors and avatars and so much more. Please to enjoy.

Episode 105: Queen of Mystery & Magic allows us to escape to New Orleans for a time to explore the poetry surrounding Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Queen, who lived a life unlike many popular stories about her have led us to believe. 

Episode 104: A Woman Ferocious and Untameable delves into the folklore of Baba Yaga, the Slavic witch of folktale, literature and popular culture. We have frequent mentions of cannibalism also, without actually using the word “cannibalism.” We do not have the courage that Baba Yaga has! But you do so LISTEN!

Episode 103: An Improper Witch is a fun little ride through the pop culture favorite "Bewitched," starring Elizabeth Montgomery as Samantha Stephens. We start with a poem about her and go into some trivia and key moments from the show that are bewitchingly poetic.

Episode 102: She’s a Witch! is the first episode in our series about witches that will accompany the opening of the Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry’s exhibit on witches. In this episode we discuss Mother Shipton, and Bill also gives you his Top Ten Witchy Songs!