NB: Man, I so wanted to call this episode All Hail the Nuptial Fuck Chamber but out of respect for Elijah and his family, I gave it a nice title instead.

Also, Chris followed up with an additional note: “Looking at (rather than just vaguely recalling) the bit from Catullus 62, the poem is amoebaean (the girls sing in answer to the boys). It opens with the boys claiming that the evening star, Venus, is shining over Olympus, understood as simply meaning that it’s in the sky—that is, it is night, time for marriage (and consummation). The girls echo this claim, but they swap out Mount Oeta for Olympus, Oeta being close to Olympus and interchangeable with it. When Housman says that ‘the star from Oeta’s steep / calls to bed but not to sleep,’ I think he’s just echoing this evocative, poeticizing way of saying ‘the ceremony’s done, now it’s time for fun.’ Of course, if it is about MJ [Moses Jackson], the real emotion of the poem is in the speaker’s self-abnegation, his giving the groom to the girl who loves him less than he does, his blessing on and defense of (hand on sword) the conjugal jollifications, and his own exclusion from bliss. But I wouldn’t take any of the geography too literally! the main point is just that it’s night time, and night time is the right time.”

SLEERICKETS is a podcast about poetry and other intractable problems.

My book Midlife now exists. Buy it here, or leave it a rating here or here

For more SLEERICKETS, subscribe to SECRET SHOW, join the group chat, and send me a poem for Listener Crit!

Leave the show a rating here (actually, just do it on your phone, it’s easier). Thanks!

Wear SLEERICKETS t-shirts and hoodies. They look good!

SLEERICKETS is now on YouTube!

For a frank, anonymous critique on SLEERICKETS, subscribe to the SECRET SHOW and send a poem of no more 25 lines to sleerickets [at] gmail [dot] com

Some of the topics mentioned in this episode:

– Pre-order Brian’s book The Optimists! It’s so good!

– Let me know if you’d like a review copy of my forthcoming chapbook The Soft Black Stars: sleerickets [at] gmail [dot] com

– Secret Show Ep 29. Eyes! Nose! Throat!

– Musical Order and New Babel: on Apocalypse Dance by Ethan McGuire by D. W. Baker

– Six of my poems at The New Stylus

– Epithalamium by A. E. Housman

– To my Comrade, Moses J. Jackson, Scoffer at my Scholarship by A. E. Housman, trans. A. E. Stallings

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

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

– Chris Childers

– Alexis Sears

– JP Gritton

– Alex Pepple

– Ernie Hilbert

– Joanna Pearson

– Matt Wall

– Steve Knepper

– Helena Feder

– David Yezzi

Other Ratbag Poetry Pods:

Poetry Says by Alice Allan

I Hate Matt Wall by Matt Wall

Versecraft by Elijah Perseus Blumov

Ratbag Poetics By David Jalal Motamed

Alice: In Future Posts

Brian: @BPlatzer

Cameron: Minor Tiresias

Matthew: sleerickets [at] gmail [dot] com

Music by ETRNL

Art by Daniel Alexander Smith