SLEERICKETS

By Matthew Buckley SmithArts Books

SLEERICKETS episodes

January 11 Ep 229: Art Sex Drugs Food
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
Sarah Jessica Parker
Literary Matters
New Verse Review
Youth (2015)
The Great Beauty (2014)
Maud Martha by Gwendolyn Brooks
Philip Roth
The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker
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
1 hr 1 min
January 05 Ep 228: Bad Poet Fight
NB: At one point, I say that by January 10, 2018, Massey’s book A New Silence had been pulled from Wesleyan University Press, but this is incorrect. It was “indefinitely delayed” by Wesleyan University Press in March, and he withdrew it later that month. Also, to clarify, I am a notably-not-altogether-embarrassing chess player only in the 10-minute time control. In other time controls I’m unequivocally, straightforwardly pathetic.
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
– Silliman’s Blog: Friday, September 20, 2002
– Precise Instability: Introducing Joseph Massey by Rae Armantrout
– The Poet Joseph Massey Is an Abuser
– Poet Massey Withdraws Book from Wesleyan UP After Allegations Surface by Emmet Teran, Hannah Reale, and Molly Schiff
– The Poet Joseph Massey’s Disturbing History of Abuse by Rebekah Kirkman
– A MeToo Mob Tried to Destroy My Life as a Poet. This Is How I Survived by Joseph Massey
– Joseph Massey, the Unofficial Poet Laureate of Trump’s America by Peter Savodnik
– Jina Huh’s Kate Schapira Thread
– Praise Song for the Day by Elizabeth Alexander
– One Today by Richard Blanco
– America Is the Poem by Joseph Massey
– There’s so much else. So much more stuff. Good Lord.
– Chess.com (here’s me)
– Lichess.org
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
1 hr 28 min
December 29, 2025 Ep 227: A Particularly Scottish Conversation, ft. Niall Campbell
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
– The Island in the Sound by Niall Campbell
– What if it’s not writer’s block? by Niall Campbell
– Is poetry a career? by the North Sea Poets
– Poetry London
– North Sea Poets
– The long game by Don Paterson
– Don Paterson
– Douglas Dunn
– Roddy Lumsden
– Michael Longley
– John Burnside
– The Lighthouse (2019)
– Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig
– Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985)
– Poetry Should Be a Great Deal of Trouble: Don Paterson interviewed by Caitlin Doyle
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
1 hr 8 min
December 21, 2025 Ep 226: Dearly Beloved
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
1 hr 21 min
December 12, 2025 Ep 225: Listener Crit #8
NB: My confusing mention of Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death mistakenly gave Alice the impression that the book is by Freud. Instead it’s just heavily founded in the Freudian vision of human experience. Also, “The Deeper in” is totally not an a cappella song. Also, Matthew was a tax collector, not a moneylender. Other than those, we made no errors whatsoever!
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:
Dinosaurs in the Hood by Danez Smith
The Ghost of Foghorn Leghorn Speaks of Unrequited Love by Paul Guest
James Merrill
Greg Williamson
Geoffrey Hill
Capital Improvements: The Initial-Caps Wars by Maryann Corbett
The Fall of Rome by W. H. Auden
Donald Duck’s Lament by Paul Guest
The Roud Folk Song Index
Roud Folk Song 4933 Conversation with Death
The Pardoner’s Tale
Everyman
The Unquiet Grave
The Daemon Lover by Shirley Jackson
Death, an Ode by John Forbes
Matthew's poem Ankou recently republished in The New Stylus
Which is the True One? by Charles Baudelaire
The Denial of Death by Sigmund Freud
William James
Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe
Alcestis
Horace i.iv and iv.vii
The Seventh Seal
Secret Show Ep 108. How Are We Happy? (on Paradise Lost)
The Barron Field Experience

Secret Show notes
Aubade by Philip Larkin
So, We’ll Go No More a Roving by Lord Byron
Untamed Daughter by A.M. Juster
Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Nothing Endures by Countee Culleen
Alice in the Looking Glass by A.E. Stallings
Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost
The Deeper In by The Drive By Truckers
This living hand, now warm and capable by John Keats
Twelfth Night
The Raindrop Prelude by Chopin
This is America by Childish Gambino
Dance Music by The Mountain Goats
Andrea del Sarto by Robert Browning
Banksy
Pieta
The Calling of St Matthew by Caravaggio
T.O. Brandon
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
1 hr 21 min
December 06, 2025 Ep 224: Broadway Omnibus
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!
– In Future Posts
– Minor Tiresias
– & Juliet by Max Martin and David West Read
– Chicago by John Kander, Fred Ebb, and Bob Fosse
– Six by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss
– Beetlejuice the Musical by Eddie Perfect
– Little Bear Ridge Road by Samuel D. Hunter
– Steppenwolf Theatre Company
– Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee
– Horace & Pete
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
1 hr 22 min
November 26, 2025 Ep 223: Dowsing Rods & Decoder Rings
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!
– Ep 222: Poetry Voice Classic, ft. Jonathan Farmer & Ep 172: Five Blade Mode, ft. Jonathan Farmer
– Graves by Hayden Carruth
– How to Read the Odyssey by Ryan Wilson
– The Odyssey, trans. Robert Fitzgerald
– The Aeneid, trans. Robert Fitzgerald
– Seth Bernardete
– Failed Essay on Privilege by Elisa Gonzalez
– Next Day by Randall Jarrell
– A Sunset of the City by Gwendolyn Brooks
– Secret Show Ep 168: A Real Chill
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
1 hr 10 min
November 21, 2025 Ep 222: Poetry Voice Classic, ft. Jonathan Farmer
NB: The first time I refer to Gonzalez, I say the wrong last name, because I am dumb. Sorry, Eliza! Sorry, also, for everything else.
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!
Louise Gluck
Eliza Gonzalez

Louise Gluck's Nobel lecture

Lionel Shriver

Ep 207: Wild Ernestness on Ernest Hemingway
Against Remembrance: On Louise Gluck by Eliza Gonzalez
Education of the Poet by Louise Gluck
Poetry Says Ep. 294 The American Ecstatic
Ep 166: Three Bird Mafia on the Order of the Third Bird
The Uneasy Friendship of Poets by Matthew Buckley Smith
Robert Macfarlane's blurb for Jorie Graham

Secret show notes
Song in the Grass by Kate Fagan
praise song by Nate Marshall
Praise Song for the Day by Elizabeth Alexander

Christian Wiman
The Defense of Poesy by Sir Philip Sidney
Ripostes by Michael Robbins

The Optimist by Joshua Mehigan
I want the ketchup fights
Ep 14: M*****f****r of the Arts on what an MFA in poetry gets you
HEAT
Ep 48: Crying Emoji, Fire Emoji, ft. Amit Majmudar
The New American Poetry 1945-1960 edited by Donald Allen
New Ohio Review's cover artwork
The Cows on Killing Day by Les Murray
Quadrant
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
1 hr 5 min
November 15, 2025 Ep 221: ALSCW 2025
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!
– The new issue of the Birmingham Poetry Review (the review of Midlife is in there, it’s just annoyingly not listed online)
– Euphoric Recall at In Future Posts by Alice Allan
– The ALSCW conference
– Rachel Hadas
– Dick Davis
– Li Po Meets Oulipo by Michael Leong
– How to Think like a Poet by Ryan Wilson
– Literary Matters
– Poetry Says: Dorothy Porter’s Aeneas Part 1 & Part 2
– The AWP
– The MLA
– Wolf Hall (PBS)
– Roger Reeves
– Zina Gomez-Liss
– David Mikics
– Ruby LaRocca (the college student, not the slasher actress)
– Macbeth (2015)
– Tim Carroll
– Clip from the 2012 production of Twelfth Night at the Globe, courtesy of Amanda
– Henry V (1944)
– Henry V (1989)
– Twelfth Night (1996)
– Gerhard Richter’s 2007 stained glass window for Cologne Cathedral
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
1 hr 20 min
November 06, 2025 Ep 220: Big in Romania, ft. Versecraft
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!
Matthew's poem Ankou published in The New Stylus
Poetry Says ep 158 (start at 44:17)

The ALSCW conference
Rachel Hadas
Rod McKuen
Death of a Whale by John Blight
Literature in North Queensland
More Light! by A. E. Stallings
Golden Repair by Louise Carter
The Poet Tasters by Ben Etherington
The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker
The Denial of Death and Escape from Evil on Philosophise This!
A Real Chill (on AI and Gwendolyn Brooks)
Golden calf
Arnold Schoenberg
Wild (2014)

Secret show notes
Alice's list of Australian journals and editors
Trello
Sub Club
LitNotice
Poets & Writers
Clifford Garstang's ranking
Chill Subs
Queensland Writers Centre
Dick Davis
A Plague of Poets by C. D. Wright
The Other Side of Daylight by David Brooks
I Know a Man by Robert Creeley
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
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
1 hr 18 min