SLEERICKETS

By Matthew Buckley SmithArts Books

SLEERICKETS episodes

November 01, 2025 Ep 219: Listener Crit #7
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!
Elijah's on Jeopardy!
Selling Sunset
Resume by Dorothy Parker
The Subalterns by Thomas Hardy
Priamel
Fragment 16 by Sappho
Insomnia by Elizabeth Bishop
Zeugma
A Letter by Anthony Hecht
A Letter by Donald Justice
Irresponsible Tune by Dirty Projectors
The Fall of Rome by W. H. Auden
Aubade by Bill Coyle
Jelly Roll: a blues by Kevin Young
Elegy by Edna St. Vincent Millay
The House on the Hill by Edwin Arlington Robinson
The Freaks at Spurgin Road Field by Richard Hugo
The Great British Bake Off

Secret show notes
Rhymes Rooms by Brad Leithauser
Freddie deBoer
Funny Games (1997)
Allen Tate
Hayden Carruth
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 23 min
October 24, 2025 Ep 218: Fair Play
SLEERICKETS is a podcast about poetry and other intractable problems.
NB: Oops, got this out late! The reading already happened, but I think it went well!
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!
– Danya Naroditsky
– Vasyl Ivanchuk
– The Dark Side of Chess
– Katie Dozier
– Tim Green
– Rattle
– The Poetry Space
– Gregory Orr
– Ion
– Anne Carson
– To my artist friends by Alice Allan
– The To My Artist Friends Versecraft Episode, Part 1 & Part 2
– A Sunset of the City by Gwendolyn Brooks
– Next Day by Randall Jarrell
– My Last Duchess by Robert Browning
– Ep 81: The Eliza Effect, ft. Carmine Starnino
– Crush by Richard Siken
– The Poetic Principle by Edgar Allan Poe
– The Day Is Done by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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 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 13 min
October 19, 2025 Ep 217: Atheist Sip & Paint, Pt. 1
NB: Jane! It was Jane, not Julie, who recommended the TIB essay. Sorry, Jane!
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 new book The Optimists!
The Fatima Sun Miracle: Much More Than You Wanted To Know by Scott Alexander

Poetry Demon Hunters
William James
Pascal’s wager
Ep 214: Serious Bad Catholic, ft. Steve Knepper
Night by Elie Wiesel
I Spent Years Searching for Magic—I Found God Instead by Tara Isabella Burton

Hail Satan? (2019)
Andrew Palmer
Thomas Aquinas
Brats (2024)
Reverse Cowgirl, Raving, and Love and Money, Sex and Death by McKenzie Wark
Kathy Acker
I'm very into you: Correspondence 1995-1996 by McKenzie Wark and Kathy Acker
Judith Butler
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 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 11 min
October 11, 2025 Ep 216: Tall Orders
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 new book The Optimists!
– Dracula by Bram Stoker
– Fragments from the Introduction to the Method of… by Paul Valery
– Nathaniel Rudavsky-Brody
– Edward Albee
– Macbeth by William Shakespeare
– David Gosselin
– Hamlet and his problems by T. S. Eliot
– The Late Night by Aaron Poochigian (in the Summer 2025 issue of 32 Poems)
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 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
October 04, 2025 Ep 215: The Old Criterion
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:
Meanjin
Who Killed Meanjin? by Nick Feik
Overland
Cordite
The Idea of a Literary Review by T. S. Eliot
Last Words by T. S. Eliot
Literary Matters
HEAT
Clem Christensen
Spillway
The Poetry Foundation's various podcasts
Chapo Trap House
David Cross
Hail Satan? (2019)
The Antichrist: A Four-Part Lecture Series by Peter Thiel
Ep 208: Password to the Ghost World
On Heteropessimism by Asa Seresin
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 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 7 min
September 28, 2025 Ep 214: Serious Bad Catholic, ft. Steve Knepper, Pt. 1
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:
– New Verse Review
– An Introduction to Byung-Chul Han by Steve Knepper, Ethan Stoneman, and Robert Wyllie
– Red Dragonflies by Steve Knepper
– The Agony of Eros by Byung-Chul Han
– The Burnout Society by Byung-Chul Han
– Melancholia (2011)
– Nosferatu (2024)
– Nosferatu (1922)
– Rod Dreher
– Alain Badiou
– Flannery O’Connor
– Georges Bataille
– Cornel West
– Slavoj Zizek
– Two Years After Cormac McCarthy’s Death… by Richard Grant
– Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
– Jeff Koons’ Balloon Dog
– Brazilian waxing (NSFW, I mean, come on)
– Struggle Session
– Thomas Ligotti
– Against Interpretation by Susan Sontag
– Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville
– Martin Heidegger
– Timothy Leary
– The Devil at Woodstock by David Gosselin
– The Flying Dutchman
– The Birth of Tragedy by Friedrich Nietzsche
– Maya Venters
– The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
– Little Briar Rose by the Brothers Grimm
– The Sad Dads of the National by Amanda Petrusich
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 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
September 21, 2025 Ep 213: Listener Crit #5
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:
– Morri Creech won the Rattle Poetry Prize!
– Is it unethical for lit mags to conceal what portion of work is solicited? by Becky Tuch
– Tar River Poetry
– Literary Matters
– Tar River Poetry Reading Sunday, September 19, 2025
– Chelsea Rathburn
– Emily Dickinson
– Alex McKeown
– Ashley Anna McHugh
– A Heroic Death by Charles Baudelaire
– The first matador got the horn by Ernest Hemingway
– Leda and the Swan by W. B. Yeats
– Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven by W. B. Yeats
– Dizzy by David Yezzi
– The Good News by David Yezzi
– The Chain by David Yezzi
– These Are the Poems, Folks by David Yezzi
– On the Marionette Theatre by Heinrich von Kleist
– Saeed Jones
– Woman Waits, Seething, Blooming by Dave Eggers
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 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 39 min
September 14, 2025 Ep 212: Girls! Girls! Girls! ft. Alexis Sears & Joanna Pearson
SLEERICKETS is a podcast about poetry and other intractable problems.
NB: Also the title of a good Liz Phair song. And Chloe Pirrie is Scottish.
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:
– Out of Order by Alexis Sears
– Bright and Tender Dark by Joanna Pearson
– The Hyla Brook Reading Series at the Frost Farm
– Too Much (2025)
– Girls (2012–2017)
– Megan Stalter
– Will Sharpe
– Lena Dunham
– Luis Felber
– Michael Zegen
– John Magaro
– Aubrey Plaza
– Sally Hawkins
– Chloe Pirrie
– Adele Exarchopoulos
– Emily Ratajkowski
– Jack Antonoff
– Rhea Perlman
– Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke, ft. T.I., Pharrell
– Got to Give It Up by Marvin Gaye
– Keith Moon
– Sonoya Mizuno
– Eudora Welty
– Edi Patterson as Judy Gemstone
– The White Lotus (2021–)
– A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift
– Historia Calamitatum by Peter Abelard
– Her Ex Writes a Novel by Shashi Bhat
– Byung-Chul Han
– J. K. Rowling
– Michael B. Jordan
– S. E. Hinton
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 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 4 min
September 06, 2025 Ep 211: Literary Matters 18.1
SLEERICKETS is a podcast about poetry and other intractable problems.
NB: In case it needs saying, no, I don’t think people should just seize hold of one another’s genitals without asking.
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:
– Literary Matters 18.1
– Submit to LM (but ignore the submissions guidelines)
– Tar River Poetry
– Submit to Tar River Poetry
– New Verse Review
– Submit Halloween-themed poems to New Verse Review
– Come hear me read at the Frost Farm this Thursday, September 11, at 6:30!
– My recent appearance on Matt Wall’s Bukowski Pod
– Zina Gomez-Liss
– Helena Feder
– Matt Steinhafel
– Emily Grace
– The ALSCW
– The Poetry Space
– To the Reader by Charles Baudelaire, trans. Tristram Fane Saunders
– The Little Review
– Concerning The Wreck by T. O. Brandon
– Women’s Work by Maya Venters
– Alien vs. Predator by Michael Robbins
– Chubby Checker by M. I. Devine
– The Bad Apple Sings by Hailey Leithauser
– Senryu at Zion National Park by Pedro Poitevin
– Eratosphere
– The Wreck of the Deutschland by Gerard Manley Hopkins
– Concerning Kipling by George Bradley
– Nightjar by James Midgley
– Yangtze Gorge by Nida Sophasarun
– A thing I wrote on another poem of Nida’s for 32 Poems
– 90 North by Randall Jarrell
– Narcissus by R. Nemo Hill
– The Shield of Achilles by W. H. Auden
– Assurances by Sunil Iyengar
– Spoor by Forester McClatchey
– The End of the Age of Singing by Niall Campbell
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 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 15 min
August 29, 2025 Ep 210: Middle-Aged Witches, Pt. 1, ft. Versecraft & The Flummoxed
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:
Ari Aster
Beau is Afraid (2023)

Midsommar (2019)
Eddington (2025)
Interaction of Color by Josef Albers
The Strange Thing About the Johnsons (2011)
Flannery O’Connor
The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud
On Dreams by Sigmund Freud
The Psychopathology of Everyday Life by Sigmund Freud
The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker
Mother! (2017)
Lord of Illusions (1995)
Carl Jung
Ethan's essay about Beau is Afraid on The Flummoxed
Ethan’s podcast episode about Beau is Afraid
Lego Batman (2017)
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
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: In Future Posts
Brian: @BPlatzer
Cameron: Minor Tiresias
Matthew: sleerickets [at] gmail [dot] com
Music by ETRNL
Art by Daniel Alexander Smith
1 hr 13 min