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, check out the SECRET SHOW and join the group chat

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!

Some of the topics mentioned in this episode:

Versecraft starter episodes: Elijah's interview with Tim Steele and his episode on Shane McCrae's Eurydice On the Art of Poetry

Uncut Gems (2019)

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

"The Four Horsemen" roundtable with Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens

Ben Shapiro

Joe Rogan

Jordan Peterson

You are not serious people

Does God Exist? William Lane Craig vs. Christopher Hitchens

Matthew’s poem Creed for Atheists

Bertrand Russell

Topic of Cancer by Christopher Hitchens

Spinoza

Bill Hicks

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

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

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, check out the SECRET SHOW and join the group chat

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!

Some of the topics mentioned in this episode:

Anatomy of a Fall (2023)
I’m Starting to Think You Guys Don’t Really Want a “Village” By Clare Haber-Harris

Clare Haber-Harris’s substack Cartoons Hate Her
Ep 149: Owls in the Desert

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

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

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, check out the SECRET SHOW and join the group chat

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!

Some of the topics mentioned in this episode:

Mary Oliver
Pity the Beautiful by Dana Gioia
The Art of Voice: Poetic Principles and Practice by Tony Hoagland
Derek Walcott
Frances Leviston
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Robert Pinsky
The Dream Songs by John Berryman
The Iceman Cometh by Eugene O'Neill
Robert Lowell
As Kingfishers Catch Fire by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Nobody Speak by DJ Shadow
32 Poems
Elegy for Estrogen by V. Penelope Pelizzon
Sonnet 18

The Face by Randall Jarrell

My Picture Left in Scotland by Ben Jonson

Carl Dennis
Promises of Gold by José Olivarez

poem where no one is deported by José Olivarez
Matthew Arnold

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

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

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, check out the SECRET SHOW and join the group chat

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!

Some of the topics mentioned in this episode:

My Grandmaster Mom Sneaked in to a Chess Tournament in London

Anna Cramling

Ding Liren

Ding Liren is CHILLING
John Cena speaking mandarin with an ice-cream
Grandmasters being SAVAGE for 8 minutes straight
Gukesh Dommaraju
Judit Polgár

Amélie Mauresmo
Donald Justice
Lee Herrick
Ep 172: Less Human Than Human, Pt. 1 & Pt. 2
Matthew's poem Spontaneous Loss
Lying by Sam Harris

(and these things are mentioned in the secret show)

Philip Larkin, the Poet Laureate who never was
Gwen Harwood
James McAuley
That Mitchell and Webb Look: The Doctor and the Ice Cream Taster
Such Great Heights by The Postal Service
Winning Ugly by Brad Gilbert
Ken Bolton
Poetry Says Ep. 290 Australian Gothic

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

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

SLEERICKETS is a podcast about poetry and other intractable problems.

NB: Stallings wrote in to add a note: “I am somewhat mortified to realize that I got Pemberly's situation wrong--of course it is in Derbyshire! Uggh. Don't know if there is a way to edit my Yorkshire comments out, or add a comment there. Austenites will have me for lunch. (Rightly so.)”

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

For more SLEERICKETS, check out the SECRET SHOW and join the group chat

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!

Some of the topics mentioned in this episode:

– Send your AMA questions to sleerickets [at] gmail [dot] com

– This Afterlife by A. E. Stallings

– The Oxford Professor of Poetry

– Beautiful Fierce Cheats (review of Wetzsteon & Bachman) by A. E. Stallings

– A Gaze Hound That Hunteth by the Eye by V. Penelope Pelizzon

– Stallings on Cliche by V. Penelope Pelizzon

– Temper by Beth Bachman

– Silver Roses by Rachel Wetzsteon

– Bells for John Whiteside’s Daughter by John Crowe Ransom

– Resume by Dorothy Parker

– Joy Division

– The Smiths

– Sakura Park by Rachel Wetzsteon

– Stankonia by OutKast

– After Wyatt by Rachel Wetzsteon

– Pemberly by Rachel Wetzsteon

– Septimus by Rachel Wetzsteon

– Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

– They Flee from Me by Thomas Wyatt

– Nightingales by Rachel Wetzsteon

– Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

– John Hollander

– West Chester Poetry Conference

– Ange Mlinko

– Richie Hofmann

– Housman’s expansion of Sappho’s epithalamium

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

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

SLEERICKETS is a podcast about poetry and other intractable problems.

NB: Oops, I said the study appeared in Scientific Reports, which it did, but this is actually just a segment of the prominent science journal Nature.

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

For more SLEERICKETS, check out the SECRET SHOW and join the group chat

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!

Some of the topics mentioned in this episode:

– Send your AMA questions to sleerickets [at] gmail [dot] com

– Ethan’s Response to Ep 171

– Ep 171: Into the Black

– When Good Becomes Too Good: The Curious Case of AI Poetry by John Nosta

– AI-generated poetry is indistinguishable from human-written poetry and is rated more favorably by Brian Porter and Edouard Machery

– The complete set of data and experimental materials from the Porter and Machery study

– The complete set of poems used in the Porter and Machery study

– ChatGPT’s Poetry Is Incompetent and Banal by Ernest Davis

– Ding Liren

– Gukesh Dommaraju

– Game Changer by Matthew Sadler and Natasha Regan

– Ep 101: Lucky Ruins, ft. Stephen Marche

– Justin Vernon with (also a bold revival of pop-music saxophone) and without (a real delight if you’re a Bonnie Raitt fan) Auto-Tune

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

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

SLEERICKETS is a podcast about poetry and other intractable problems.

NB: Michael Jordan is alive. The knights are of course shaped like horses.

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

For more SLEERICKETS, check out the SECRET SHOW and join the group chat

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!

Some of the topics mentioned in this episode:

– Ethan’s response to this episode

– Ding Liren

– Wei Yi

– Wei Yi’s poem for Ding Liren w/ Ethan McGuire’s literal rendering, transliteration, and preliminary translation into rhyming pentameter

– Gukesh Dommaraju

– Poetry Says Ep 263. Water-dragon blues

– Poetry Says Ep 97. What makes poets lucky

– World Chess Championship 2024, Game 1

– Dreaming of Li Bai by Du Fu

– Chess24/Chess.com

– Gotham Chess

– Take Take Take

– On Writing and Failure by Stephen Marche

– The Stephen Marche episode

– The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

– Sorrow and Words by Li Qingzhao

– The Wild Swans at Coole by W. B. Yeats

– Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

– Ethan’s NVR newsletter

– An Alley in Avignon by Mary Jo Salter

– Ethan’s recent thematically cohesive commonplace book

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

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

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, check out the SECRET SHOW and join the group chat

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!

Some of the topics mentioned in this episode:

– The Promise of Words by Laura Riding

– Elijah’s notes on the essay

– Beyond Poetry by Blake Smith

– The Republic by Plato

– On Portents by Robert Graves

– No Second Troy by W. B. Yeats

– Versecraft on Riding & Graves, on John Martin Finlay, on Cameron

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

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

SLEERICKETS is a podcast about poetry and other intractable problems.

NB: Oops, forgot to mention all the non-voting/protest voting listeners out there. I see you, too.

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

For more SLEERICKETS, check out the SECRET SHOW and join the group chat

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!

Some of the topics mentioned in this episode:

– Leila’s recommendations:

- "Dedication" by Fady Joudah, who is also American but with a personal connection to Gaza, many of whose family members have indeed been killed there: 2024 Jackson Poetry Prize Reading: Fady Joudah in Conversation With Pádraig Ó Tuama (recorded here beginning at minute 50)

- "Not Just Passing" and "I Grant You Refuge" by Heba Abu Nada, who was killed in Gaza: Not Just Passing: In Honor of Heba Abu Nada - Mizna; I Grant You Refuge • Protean Magazine

- "My mother once said" and "The land fights, too" by Nour Khalil Abu Shammala, writing from Gaza: My mother once said | The Electronic Intifada; The land fights, too | The Electronic Intifada

- "A Request," "Right or Left," and others contained in this interview with Mosab Abu Toha, who is from Gaza and some of whose experience is also recounted here: “Forest of Noise”: Palestinian Poet Mosab Abu Toha on New Book, Relatives Killed in Gaza & More | Democracy Now!

- "It Always Starts with Words" and "Four Poems" by Olivia Elias, born in Palestine and writing from the diaspora: It Always Starts with Words - Mizna; FOUR POEMS by Olivia Elias, trans. Jérémy Victor Robert – FOUR WAY REVIEW

- "Gazan Despair" and "When a Missile Lands" by Yahya Ashour, who is outside of Gaza and unable to return: Gazan Despair - Mizna; New Poetry in Translation: Yahya Ashour’s ‘When a Missile Lands’ – ARABLIT & ARABLIT QUARTERLY

- Poems from "Ash and Air" by Nadine Murtaja, writing from Gaza: Ash and Air: a Poetry Folio from Gaza - Mizna

– Padraig O Tuama

– Julie Steiner

– Ep 167: Poetry Magazine, October 2024

– Ceasefire Haiku by Faisal Mohyuddin

– The Tea and Sage Poem by Fady Joudah

– Mimesis by Fady Joudah

– Forest of Noise by Mosab Abu Toha

– Brian Cox’s rendition of If I Must Die by Refaat Alareer

– If I Must Die by Refaat Alareer

– Sunlight on the Garden by Louis MacNeice

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

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, check out the SECRET SHOW and join the group chat

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!

Some of the topics mentioned in this episode:

– James Haverty Smith

– Toward an Architecture by Le Corbusier

– Kanye West Bought an Architectural Treasure—Then Gave It a Violent Remix by Ian Parker

– Ep 167: Poetry Magazine, October 2024

– My appearance on Drunk as Poet on Payday

– Jason Gray

– Tadao Ando

– Frank Gehry

– Zaha Hadid

– Santiago Calatrava

– Colin Rowe

– Tesla Cybertruck (and the phony DeLorean logo on the one we saw)

– Boston Dynamics Dogs

– Paradise Lost by John Milton

– Manuel Cadrecha

– Cloister of Santa Maria della Pace (the perfect courtyard)

– Jorge Silvetti (the professor who assigned the analysis of the Villa La Rotonda)

– Villa La Rotonda (the most famous building in the world)

– Donato Bramante

– Andrea Palladio

– Civilization and Its Discontents by Sigmund Freud

– Notre-Dame du Haut (Le Corbusier’s chapel in Ronchamp)

– Bauhaus

– Collage City by Fred Koetter and Colin Rowe

– Philip Johnson

– Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (Frank Gehry’s building inspired by the shipyards)

– Heydar Aliyev Centre (Zaha Hadid’s building dedicated to a tyrant but beloved by skateboarders)

– Santa Maria de la Tourette

– Villa Savoye

– The Paideia School (my weird high school)

– A Worn Path by Eudora Welty

– Margaret Pepperdene (my mentor Jane)

– The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

– John’s Mountie Boots by Marilyn Levine

– Chuck Close

– Louis Kahn (not Thomas Kuhn)

– Thomas Kuhn (the paradigm shift guy)

– John Barth (not Roland Barthes)

– The Death of the Author by Roland Barthes

– Donald Barthelme

– The Rites & Wrongs of Janice Wills by Joanna Pearson (my wife’s YA novel)

– The Daily: How Air-Conditioning Conquered the World

– One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

– Dear Derrida by David Kirby 

– Mozart’s Requiem

– The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton

– Westworld (1973) by Michael Crichton

– Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

– Timeline by Michael Crichton

– CivilWarLand in Bad Decline by George Saunders

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