Welcome to the fourth episode of Season Two of the Bagley Wright Lecture Series podcast. This season, we're listening to five lectures by Dorothea Lasky, and related conversations with experts in some of the subjects of Lasky's talks. This week, we’ll hear Dorothea Lasky give her lecture, “The Beast: How Poetry Makes Us Human.” This lecture was given December 5, 2013, at the Library of Congress. 

Lasky's lectures explore the non-linear and highly complex relationship between language, color, time, and meaning-making, considering, for example, the “I” as multiplicitous shape-shifter in search of the wild power of poetry. 

Following this lecture, we’ll hear a conversation on the innate magic of objects between Lasky and puppeteer Christopher Mullens. 

Visit us at our website, www.bagleywrightlectures.org, for more information about Bagley Wright lecturers, as well as links to supplementary materials on each lecturer’s archive page, including selected writings. Thank you to the Library of Congress for partnering with the Series for this event, and thank you for listening.

Dorothea Lasky's book of collected BWLS lectures, Animal (Wave Books, 2019) is here.

Music: "I Recall" by Blue Dot Sessions

from the Free Music Archive

CC BY NC