NB: Yes, I realize that my statement “Nobody ever speaks in rhyme and meter” is in fact a line of iambic pentameter.

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Some of the topics mentioned in this episode:

– The Penguin Book of Greek and Latin Lyric Verse, trans. Christopher Childers

– The Eight Stages of Translation by Robert Bly

– Robert Frost’s letter to John Bartlett regarding sentence sound (couldn’t find a great copy online)

– Sonnets to Orpheus No. 21 by Rainer Maria Rilke (see also Chris’s translation below)

– Horace i.11

– Orchard Trees, January by Richard Wilbur

– Heraclitus trans. William Johnson Cory

– Diffugere Nives/Horace iv.7, trans. A. E. Housman

– J. Kates

– The Mysteries of Caesar by Anthony Hecht

– An addendum from Chris:

I emailed XJ Kennedy and asked him if this epigram is about Bly's essay & this specific Rilke poem. He denied it, but come on, it fits too well:

TO A TRANSLATOR 

You've done it: Rilke talks American 

Thanks to your perseverance, at the cost

Of music, rhyme and rhythm, stanza plan--

Indeed, in your translation all is lost.

This maybe more just for curiosity--my own attempt at the sonnet, just based on Bly's essay, though your point about the oddness of the central conceit is well taken. (We missed, or maybe didn't say as obvious, that earth as a school child who is reciting the poem of spring perhaps makes a bit more sense in Sonnets to Orpheus; and the idea of song after long silence is particularly appropriate to Rilke, at least from what I remember of the story of the composition of the Duino Elegies.)

Sonnet to Orpheus 1.21

Rilke

It’s spring again, and the Earth looks

like a child who’s worked to memorize

hundreds of poems. She lived with books

a long time, and now, she takes the prize. 

A difficult teacher, that old man whose

beard we liked for its shaggy white.

We’re asking her the names of the blues

and greens, and she–she gets them right!

O lucky Earth on recess, play!

You’re It, and we–we’re in pursuit

of your smiles. Joy is the winner’s wings.

See?–all she learned in her teacher’s sway,

and everything printed on each deep root

and laborious stalk–she sings, she sings!

Frequently mentioned names:

– Joshua Mehigan

– Shane McCrae

– A. E. Stallings

– Ryan Wilson

– Morri Creech

– Austin Allen

– Jonathan Farmer

– Zara Raab

– Amit Majmudar

– Ethan McGuire

– Coleman Glenn

– Alexis Sears

– JP Gritton

– Alex Pepple

– Ernie Hilbert

– Joanna Pearson

Other Ratbag Poetry Pods:

Poetry Says by Alice Allan

I Hate Matt Wall by Matt Wall

Versecraft by Elijah Blumov

Ratbag Poetics By David Jalal Motamed

Alice: Poetry Says

Brian: @BPlatzer

Cameron: CameronWTC [at] hotmail [dot] com

Matthew: sleerickets [at] gmail [dot] com

Music by ETRNL

Art by Daniel Alexander Smith