SLEERICKETS

By Matthew Buckley SmithArts Books

SLEERICKETS episodes

August 24, 2025 Ep 209: Hybrid Vigor, ft. Derek Mong, 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:
– When the Earth Flies into the Sun by Derek Mong
– At Length
– Annie O. Fisher
– The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker
– Traveling Sprinkler by Nicholson Baker
– The Belle of Amherst by William Luce
– A Quiet Passion ()
– Being John Malcovich (1999)
– Laura Lippman
– Lewis Turco
– Carl Dennis
– Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota by James Wright
– Vox by Nicholson Baker
– House of Holes by Nicholson Baker
– Funny, but Serious Too by Michael Dirda
– Poems: North & South; A Cold Spring by Elizabeth Bishop
– Geography III by Elizabeth Bishop
– Specimen Days by Walt Whitman
– Specimen Days by Michael Cunningham
– Dead Souls by Sam Riviere
– Ep 32: Poets Without Poems, ft. Sam Riviere
– Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
– Practice by Rosalind Brown
– A Quiet Place: Day One (2024) (Is it a coincidence that her yellow coat and red hat match Amanda Gorman’s inauguration ensemble?)
– Lupita Nyong’o, great weirdo actor
– The Kindergarten Teacher (2018)
– Ep 126: Sassy Kids, ft. Alexis Sears, Pt. 1 & Pt. 2
– A Teacher (2013)
– The American Poet at the Movies by Laurence Goldstein
– Paterson (2016)
– Ep 27: Baker’s Poetry, ft. Alice Allan
– Rhyme and Unreason by David Orr
– Jason Koo
– Meter in English by David Baker
– Paul Kiparsky
– Sara Teasdale
– Lullaby by W. H. Auden
– Ashes of Life by Edna St. Vincent Millay
– If you stick a stock of liquor by Norman Levy
– Susan Delaney Spear
– The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
– Sonnet 31 by Philip Sidney
– Marilyn Hacker
– Horace i.25
– The League of Moveable Type
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 1 min
August 13, 2025 Ep 208: Password to the Ghost World, Pt. 1
SLEERICKETS is a podcast about poetry and other intractable problems.
NB: Oops, I said the wrong first name of Marilyn vos Savant
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:
– Bronze Age Mindset by Bronze Age Pervert
– The Cleveland Roundtable
– Borat
– Chapo Trap House
– Jordan Peterson
– ContraPoints on YouTube & Patreon
– Yosha Iglesias
– Vanessa Place’s Gone with the Wind project
– Kenneth Goldsmith
– Mark Leidner
– Michael Shermer’s interview with Michael Egnor & Christof Koch
– Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came by Robert Browning
– On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
– There Are More Things by Jorge Luis Borges
– Thomas Ligotti
– Hasan Piker
– Christopher Hitchens
– Ta-Nehisi Coates
– Dave Smith
– J. D. Vance
– Camille Paglia
– Red Scare
– The Monty Hall problem
– Margaret Mead
– The Brontosaurus
– Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius by Jorge Luis Borges
– Toni Morrison’s Nobel lecture
– Michel Foucault
– Sabrina Carpenter
– Betty Boop
– The Bud Light boycott
– The Sydney Sweeney jeans ad
– Plato’s Cave
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 32 min
August 06, 2025 Ep 207: Wild Ernestness, Pt. 1, ft. Jonathan Farmer
NB: Alice also recommends this highly Mountainhead-esque footage of Peter Thiel.
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:
Carson McCullers
National Book Critics Circle: A Conversation on Poetry Criticism
The Case Against the Trauma Plot by Parul Sehgal
VIDA: Women in Literary Arts
Paul Valery
Linda Gregerson
Stanley Plumly
Ep 132: Intermittent Positive Reinforcement on Harry Harlow
How Do You Like It Now, Gentlemen? by Lillian Ross
Across the River and into the Trees by Ernest Hemingway
The Profile Hemingway Could Never Live Down by Adam Gopnik
Curtis Yarvin's Plot Against America by Ava Kofman
Mountainhead (2025)
Drake VS Kendrick Explained to White People by Josh Johnson

Secret show notes
Pacino's speech in Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)
Tar (2023)
Ep 166: Three Bird Mafia, ft. Jonathan Farmer on the Order of the Third Bird
The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber by Ernest Hemingway
Soldier’s Home by Ernest Hemingway
In Another Country by Ernest Hemingway
Fear and Trembling by Søren Kierkegaard
Scrambled Eggs & Whiskey: Poems, 1991 to 1995 by 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
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
59 min
August 01, 2025 Ep 206: Feels Good While It’s Happening, ft. Matt Wall
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:
– Donate to Matt’s Seasons of the Muse Indiegogo fundraiser!
– Bukowski Pod
– Matt’s Art
– Poetic Anarchy Press
– Shaylynn Marks
– When I Was a Poet by David Meltzer
– Neeli Cherkovski
– Charles Bukowski
– Allen Ginsberg
– Martin Esslin
– The Meat Poets
– The Beat Generation
– The Theatre of the Absurd
– Lawrence Ferlinghetti
– Gregory Corso
– The San Francisco Renaissance
– Jack Kerouac
– Ocean Vuong
– Andrea Long Chu’s review of Ocean Vuong
– Tom Crewe’s review of Ocean Vuong
– The Black Mountain Poets
– So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993)
– Ben Jonson
– Robert Herrick
– The Tribe of Ben
– The Hatred of Poetry by Ben Lerner
– Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner
– Douglas Blazek
– Weird Mask Magazine
– Arthur Rimbaud
– Holly Day
– Adam Crawford
– Francois Villon
– The Creative Act by Rick Rubin
– The Art Spirit by Robert Henri
– Black Square by Kazimir Malevich
– On the Beach by Nevil Schutes
– Every Day Is Like Sunday by Morrissey
– New and Collected Hell by Shane McCrae
– I Am 25 by Gregory Corso
– Pier Paolo Pasolini
– The Portrait Gallery Called Existence by Neeli Cherkovski
– Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong
– Seventh Circle of Earth by Ocean Vuong
– An Epistle Answering to One That Asked to Be Sealed of the Tribe of Ben by Ben Jonson
– Without by Donald Hall
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
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:
– Donate to Matt’s Seasons of the Muse Indiegogo fundraiser!
– Bukowski Pod
– Matt’s Art
– Poetic Anarchy Press
– Shaylynn Marks
– When I Was a Poet by David Meltzer
– Neeli Cherkovski
– Charles Bukowski
– Allen Ginsberg
– Martin Esslin
– The Meat Poets
– The Beat Generation
– The Theatre of the Absurd
– Lawrence Ferlinghetti
– Gregory Corso
– The San Francisco Renaissance
– Jack Kerouac
– Ocean Vuong
– Andrea Long Chu’s review of Ocean Vuong
– Tom Crewe’s review of Ocean Vuong
– The Black Mountain Poets
– So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993)
– Ben Jonson
– Robert Herrick
– The Tribe of Ben
– The Hatred of Poetry by Ben Lerner
– Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner
– Douglas Blazek
– Weird Mask Magazine
– Arthur Rimbaud
– Holly Day
– Adam Crawford
– Francois Villon
– The Creative Act by Rick Rubin
– The Art Spirit by Robert Henri
– Black Square by Kazimir Malevich
– On the Beach by Nevil Schutes
– Every Day Is Like Sunday by Morrissey
– New and Collected Hell by Shane McCrae
– I Am 25 by Gregory Corso
– Pier Paolo Pasolini
– The Portrait Gallery Called Existence by Neeli Cherkovski
– Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong
– Seventh Circle of Earth by Ocean Vuong
– An Epistle Answering to One That Asked to Be Sealed of the Tribe of Ben by Ben Jonson
– Without by Donald Hall
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
59 min
July 26, 2025 Ep 205: Ascending Orders of Meaninglessness
SLEERICKETS is a podcast about poetry and other intractable problems.
NB: I said pull quotes but they’re actually, like, source quotes or something.
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:
– I’ve got some poems in the terrific new issue of Poetry London!
– Niall Campbell
– Mark Leidner’s interview with Hilary Plum
– ChatGPT Gave Instructions for Murder, Self-Mutilation, and Devil Worship by Lila Shroff
– Brad Listi’s interview with Jessa Crispin
– Ep 195: The White Guy Publishing Vortex, ft. Ethan McGuire, Pt. 1 & Pt. 2
– Ep 204: Darkness Audible
– Jay Caspian Kang
– Freddie deBoer
– Hell House (2001)
– Roko’s Basilisk
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: In Future Posts
Brian: @BPlatzer
Cameron: Minor Tiresias
Matthew: sleerickets [at] gmail [dot] com
Music by ETRNL
Art by Daniel Alexander Smith
59 min
July 19, 2025 Ep 204: Darkness Audible
SLEERICKETS is a podcast about poetry and other intractable problems.
NB: Did I forget about Hitler? you ask. Did I forget about Stalin? On the one hand, yes, I temporarily did. On the other, there’s something about the notion that Gilles de Rais did all this personally in his own home for the explicit purpose of impressing the Devil with his evilness that really sickens the soul. But yes, good point, there’s always Hitler, who was, in his own way, the worst person who ever lived.
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:
– Paradise Lost by John Milton
– Conspiracy by ContraPoints
– Cameron’s travel notes
– This Pleasing Anxious Being by Richard Wilbur
– Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray
– The Versecraft interview w/ James Matthew Wilson
– The Death of Cicero by James Matthew Wilson (compare the first line to the first line of Leda and the Swan by W. B. Yeats)
– The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
– How to Blow Up a Pipeline by Andreas Malm
– How to Blow Up a Pipeline (2022)
– Bronze Age Mindset by Bronze Age Pervert
– ContraPoints’ comment on Gaza
– Ready or Not (2019) & The Babysitter (2017) (same concept, same cosmology, same leading lady, both pretty entertaining)
– The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina
– Evil
– Rod Dreher
– La-bas by J.-K. Huysmans
– Toni Morrison’s 1993 Nobel Prize lecure
– The Tower of Babel
– Canceling by ContraPoints
– We Lived Happily During the War by Ilya Kaminsky
– Mitchell & Webb’s Lucentio sketch
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: In Future Posts
Brian: @BPlatzer
Cameron: Minor Tiresias
Matthew: sleerickets [at] gmail [dot] com
Music by ETRNL
Art by Daniel Alexander Smith
1 hr 24 min
July 12, 2025 Ep 203: Gateway Drugs, ft. Mark Leidner, Pt. 1
NB: Oops, I meant 18th century. Also, Michael Haneke is Austrian after all.
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:
– Toni Morrison’s 1993 Nobel Prize lecure
– Leopards in the Temple" by Franz Kafka (couldn’t find any good links, so here’s the text Mark copy-pasted to me: “Leopards break into the temple and drink to the dregs what is in the sacrificial pitchers; this is repeated over and over again; finally it can be calculated in advance, and it becomes a part of the ceremony.“)
– Returning the Sword to the Stone by Mark Leidner
– Mark’s Substack: Opaque Hourglass
– Recitatif by Tony Morrison
– Funny Games (1997 & 2007)
– Hamlet
– Julius Caesar
– Jack Handey
– Andy Kaufman
– Plato
– The Gettysburg Address
– Amleth
– The Tower of Babel
– The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil
– Harold Pinter’s 2005 Nobel Prize lecture
– Chelsey Minnis
– Juvenilia by Hera Lindsay Bird
– A Field of Telephones by Zach Savich
– Dogs of War by Mark Leidner
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: 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
July 03, 2025 Ep 202: Listener Crit #3
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:
Pretty Woman (1990)
Pretty Woman cut scenes
Insomnia by Elizabeth Bishop
Love Poem by John Forbes
A Gift by Don Paterson
90 North by Randall Jarrell
In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markievicz by W. B. Yeats
Heorot by Ryan WIlson
James McAuley
Ep 198: Shark Week
Dan Savage
Footloose (1984)

Secret show notes
Bodies by Drowning Pool
New Year’s: A Short Pantoum by Greg Williamson
Cold Turkey by Joshua Mehigan
Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn by Ai Weiwei
Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway
Amy Hempel
Tired by Fenton Johnston
Sonnet 130
Priamel
Presto Manifesto! by A. E. Stallings
In Memoriam A. H. H. by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist by Walter Kaufmann
Sonnet 19: When I consider how my light is spent by John Milton
Ogden Nash
The Brand New Catastrophe by Mike Scalise
Encomium
Florida by Lauren Groff
Travelling through the Dark by William Stafford
After Filing for Divorce by Chelsea Rathburn
The Soft Black Stars by Matthew Buckley Smith
Aubade by Philip Larkin
Omnibus Review of Terrance Hayes, Charles Martin, Natasha Trethewey by Matthew Buckley Smith
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: 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
June 29, 2025 Ep 201: I Am My Shelf of Books, ft. Brad Leithauser, 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:
– The Old Current by Brad Leithauser
– Rhyme’s Rooms by Brad Leithauser
– Forty-Five Years On by Brad Leithauser
– Anthony Hecht
– A. E. Housman
– Charlotte Mew
– Marianne Moore
– Katsushika Hokusai
– John Crowe Ransom
– Robert Frost
– John Milton
– Iron John: A Book about Men by Robert Bly
– Elizabeth Bishop
– Chidiock Tichborne
– Richard Kenney
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: 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
June 21, 2025 Ep 200: The Neck Tattoo
SLEERICKETS is a podcast about poetry and other intractable problems.
NB: Courtesy of Shane: “For John Berryman” does in fact appear in Lowell’s Collected, on page 737.
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:
– The Secret History by Donna Tartt
– The Poet Eaters by Alice Allan & James Jiang
– Better: On the Delusions of Writing Advice by Alice Allan
– For John Berryman by Robert Lowell
– Though I am young, and cannot tell by Ben Jonson
– A Taxonomy of Conversational Forms
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: In Future Posts
Brian: @BPlatzer
Cameron: Minor Tiresias
Matthew: sleerickets [at] gmail [dot] com
Music by ETRNL
Art by Daniel Alexander Smith
1 hr 14 min