SLEERICKETS is a podcast about poetry and other intractable problems.

NB: Oops, guess it was more than ten years.

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 last episode of Poetry Says

– The Paradise Lost episode of Poetry Says, Pt. 1 & Pt. 2

– The Iron Lyre by Elijah Blumov

– The New Versecraft Substack

– The Iron Lyre Playlist on YouTube and Spotify

– Why So Serious? by Alex Ross

– Aunt Imogen by E. A. Robinson

– Brian Brodeur’s piece on E. A. Robinson

– When I Mean I by Jonathan Farmer

– The episode with Alan Shapiro

– The episode with Naomi Kanakia

– The manifesto episode

– A Dress Rehearsal for the Truth by Alan Shapiro

– The Futurist Manifesto

– American History X (1998)

Frequently mentioned names:

– Joshua Mehigan

– Shane McCrae

– A. E. Stallings

– Ryan Wilson

– Morri Creech

– Austin Allen

– Jonathan Farmer

– Zara Raab

– Matt Wall

– 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: Jonathan helpfully pointed out that Lincoln was (obviously) re-elected in 1864. In my defense, Google was very easily convinced that it was 1863 and readily supplied me with a date in November of that year.

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:

– When I Mean I by Jonathan Farmer

– Locating Voice by Christopher Childers

– Too Horny for Hexameter: Ovid’s Epic Fail by Christopher Childers

– My essay on Joshua Beckman

– The Polyvocal Poet by Ryan Wilson

– What Voice Is, ft. Jonathan Farmer, Pt. 1 & Pt. 2

– Horace i.25

– Horace ii.20

– The Whirligig of Time by Anthony Hecht

– Heart of Autumn by Robert Penn Warren

– Western Wind

– Whoso List to Hunt by Thomas Wyatt

– Ozymandias by Percy Byshe Shelley

– Horace iii.2

– The Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson

– The Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln

Frequently mentioned names:

– Joshua Mehigan

– Shane McCrae

– A. E. Stallings

– Ryan Wilson

– Morri Creech

– Austin Allen

– Jonathan Farmer

– Zara Raab

– Matt Wall

– 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:

– Woman of Letters by Naomi Kanakia

– Is literary criticism just a school of sophistry? by Naomi Kanakia

– English class teaches students to be afraid of literature by Naomi Kanakia

– Is literature a false God? by Naomi Kanakia

– The new issue of Literary Matters!

– My poem Letter to a Middle-Aged Poet in First Things

– The Versecraft episode where we all traded poems, Pt. 1 & Pt. 2

– AWP 2025

– What is art? by Leo Tolstoy

– The Secret Show episode on What is art?, Pt. 1 & Pt. 2

– The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

– Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology by Edmund Husserl

– Naomi’s review of James by Percival Everett in The Metropolitan Review

– Moby Dick by Herman Melville

– Against Interpretation by Susan Sontag

– The Case of the Wolf Man from the History of Infantile Neurosis by Sigmund Freud

– Mary Jo Salter

– The Norton Anthology of Poetry

– The Poem’s Heartbeat by Alfred Corn

– The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

– On Close Reading by John Guillory

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

NB: Sign up for Alexis Sears’s 92NY online poetry class now—deadline Wednesday, Feb 26!

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:

– Sign up for Alexis Sears’s 92NY online poetry class now—deadline Wednesday, Feb 26!

– The Shape that Am I by Patricia Lockwood

– COINTELPRO: The FBI’s Secret War on Political Freedom by Nelson Blackstock

– Dan Deacon

– Antichrist (2009)

– Immersion (Piss Christ) by Andres Serrano

– The Motte-and-Bailey Fallacy

– The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James

– The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

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

NB: Alan’s most recent poetry collection is, in fact, By and By, from Waywiser Press

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:

– A Dress Rehearsal for the Truth by Alan Shapiro

– By and By by Alan Shapiro

– Proceed to Check Out by Alan Shapiro

– An Arrangement by Alan Shapiro

– The Season of Phantasmal Peace by Derek Walcott

– Hooks by C. K. Williams

– Donahue’s Sister by Thom Gunn

– Ep 169: Thunder & Rain

– On Convention by Alan Shapiro

– The Hill We Climb by Amanda Gorman

– One Today by Richard Blanco

– Praise Song for the Day by Elizabeth Alexander

– Axel’s Castle: A Study in the Imaginative Literature of 1870-1930 by Edmund Wilson

– Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin

– This Is Just to Say by William Carlos Williams

– Fountain by Marcel Duchamp

– Of Heaven Considered as a Tomb by Wallace Stevens

– Unbound Edition Press

– Peter Campion

– Waywiser Press (Soon to become Waywiser Books?)

– Joseph Harrison

– Dora Malech

– Philip Hoy

– The Gabbro Head Press

– James Longenbach

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:

– Even My Sex Is Dust (Review of The Penguin Anthology of Spiritual Verse, ed. Kaveh Akbar) by Zara Raab

– Ep 177: Alice & Elijah vs. the Abyss, ft. Versecraft Pt. 1 & Pt. 2

– Churchgoing by Marilyn Nelson

– Church Going by Philip Larkin

– Were You There (traditional)

– Address to the Atheist by Phyllis Wheatley

– On Being Brought from Africa to America by Phyllis Wheatley

– Accepting the Disaster by Joshua Mehigan (poem)

– The Fall of Rome by W. H. Auden

– Aubade by Philip Larkin 

– Why I am now a Christian by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

– Why I am not a Christian by Bertrand Russell

– Ross Douthat

– Jonathan Rauch

– Ep 64: The Rabbit Hole, Pt. 1 & Pt. 2

– Luxury beliefs are the latest status symbol for rich Americans by Rob Henderson

– The Daily’s interview with Curtis Yarvin

– Poetry Says Ep 186. Sensitive New Right Guy

– Poetry Says Ep 294. The American Ecstatic

– Tar River Poetry

– What is art? by Leo Tolstoy

– The Dark Mountain Manifesto

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

NB: Brian informs me that Yarvin’s interviewer was actually David Marchese, not Michael Barbaro, which might explain why I found him so much less insufferable than usual! Also, male mainstream liberal podcasters sure do all have the same voice, don’t they?

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 Daily’s interview with Curtis Yarvin

– Yarvin’s embarrassing thoughts on the Passage Prize

– Yarvin’s less less embarrassing thoughts on a Poetry Daily poem

– Alice’s two poems in New Verse Review

– Violent Femmes by Nida Sophasarun

– My short essay on the 32 Poems website

– My poem Melancholia in Ploughshares (just ask if you want to read it)

– Poetry Says Ep 186. Sensitive New Right Guy

– Poetry Says Ep 294. The American Ecstatic

– Sex Elegy by Terence Winch

– Tar River Poetry

– Nik Prassas’ transcriptions of Geoffrey Hill’s lectures

– Ep 49: Handsome People Can Be Sad, ft. David Kern

– What is art? by Leo Tolstoy

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:

Emily Dickinson’s fascicles

Susan Howe

Charles Dickens

Our first AMA: Pt. 1 & Pt 2

Dave Eggers

Robert Penn Warren

Humboldt’s Gift by Saul Bellow

Edwin Arlington Robinson

Walt Whitman

Heinrich von Kleist

Elena Ferrante

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale by Joseph Conrad

Frederick Seidel

Anthony Hecht

HAL 9000

Merve Emre

The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry by Harold Bloom

Secret show: 

Bob Dylan

Cormac McCarthy

Cormac McCarthy's Secret Muse Breaks Her Silence After Half a Century by Vincenzo Barney

John Berryman

Timothée Chalamet

Hart Crane

Ep 80: The Marathon, ft. Skyzoo

Ep 23: Rhymes Without Beats, ft. James Nguyen

Charles Harpur

Banjo Paterson

A. D. Hope

Tenebrae by Geoffrey Hill

Animal Liberation by Peter Singer

Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan

Red Meat Republic by Joshua Specht

Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser

Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)

Past Lives (2023)

Ikiru (1952)

Ep 178: All the Supposedly Wonderful Poetry, ft. Jonathan Farmer

Jeanne Dielman (1975)

Inside Out 2 (2024)

Centuries by Joel Brouwer

Matthew’s movie list: 

Acute Misfortune (2018)

A Glitch in the Matrix (2021)

American Honey (2016)

Boiling Point (2021)

How to Blow Up a Pipeline (2022)

Ghost in the Shell (1995)

Mope (2020)

Nope (2022)

The Shining (1980) 

Sicario (2015)

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:

Geoffrey Hill's Oxford Lecture I know thee not, old man, fall to thy prayers
Charles Williams

Mark Morris

Church Going by Philip Larkin
Psalm by Paul Celan

Aubade by Philip Larkin

Robert Frost

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:

Matrix by Lauren Groff

Penguin UK's write up of the book
Pieter Bruegel
Between the Shadow and the Soul by Lauren Groff
Rosemary Dobson
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar  
Groff interviewed on Talking Volumes
2666 by Roberto Bolaño
A Gaze Hound That Hunteth by the Eye by V. Penelope Pelezzon

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