The Poetry Fix

Today, Erika Kyba continues to analyze Milton's "Comus," and we learn what makes the wicked spirit, Comus so dangerous: he menaces the rational faculties of men, and tempts them, through inordinate pleasure, to animality and indignity. Alexandra Comus joins us once again to narrate the part of the Attendant Spirit.

Today, Erika Kyba introduces Milton's "Comus," a purported morality masque which is perhaps not what it seems to be. Alexandra Comus narrates the part of the Attendant Spirit.

Today, Erika Kyba reads through the end of "Sic Transit Gloria Mundi," by Emily Dickinson. We begin to tie together the themes of moral bankruptcy, surface versus substance, and modernity, served with a slice of devilry.

Today, Erika Kyba reads "Sic Transit Gloria Mundi," by Emily Dickinson, a witty societal critique dashed with a commentary how certain astronomical discoveries have altered the way we understand and behave towards the universe around us.

Today, Erika Kyba reads "The Abyss," by Baudelaire, and attempts to explore the poet's terror of the infinite.

Today, Erika Kyba reads "The Benefactors" by Rudyard Kipling. Kipling mediates on how all innovation springs from the "pinch of pain and fear" that drives man.

Today, Erika Kyba reads "Adam's Curse" by William Butler Yeats. Yeats muses on how all beautiful and lovely things require labor...and how this laboring after the beautiful has become an "idle trade" in the hollow age of modernity.

Today, Erika Kyba reads "The Boston Evening Transcript," by T. S. Eliot. Much in the same vein as Henry David Thoreau, Eliot mediates on our constant obsession with the news, and what that does to the human person.

Today, Erika Kyba reads "Safe in Their Alabaster Chambers," by Emily Dickinson. In this poem, Dickinson plays with the image of a tomb acting as a lamp, and she meditates on legacy, death, and history.

Today, Erika Kyba reads "As Kingfishers Catch Fire," by Gerard Manley Hopkins. In this poem, Hopkins explores the natural image of kingfishers and dragonflies reflecting the sun's light, and he uses it to portray how God's glory shines forth in every single person, with all their particularities.