A classic radio noir detective story — plus bonus commentary and trivia after the show.

Richard Diamond, Private Detective – “Lt. Levinson Is Kidnapped” (1950)

Step back into the golden age of radio with Richard Diamond, Private Detective, the hardboiled crime series known for its bruising action, sharp dialogue, and wry sense of humor. In this 1950 episode, “Lt. Levinson Is Kidnapped,” Diamond is drawn into a dangerous case involving a missing police officer, where loyalty, corruption, and violence collide on the city streets.

After the broadcast, stay tuned for bonus commentary and behind-the-scenes trivia — including Richard Diamond’s place in radio noir history, the show’s distinctive blend of toughness and humor, and why private-eye dramas thrived in postwar radio.

Originally aired: 1950

Approx. runtime: 27 minutes

A daily love poem for February — with gentle commentary after each reading.

February Love Poem Series – Day 28: Sonnet 71 — “No Longer Mourn for Me When I Am Dead” by William Shakespeare

Welcome to the final day of The Porcupine Presents Love Poetry Month.

Each day this February, we’ve shared a different poem exploring love in all its forms — joyful, wounded, wistful, playful, devoted, and enduring. Today we close the month with a poem about love that persists even as the poet imagines his own absence.

Shakespeare’s Sonnet 71, beginning with the line “No Longer Mourn for Me When I Am Dead,” is a tender and selfless farewell. Instead of calling for eternal grieving, the speaker urges the beloved to let go — to avoid sorrow, to protect themselves from pain, and to continue living. It is a love poem shaped by generosity rather than despair, and by the quiet bravery of acceptance.

After the poem, stay tuned for a final reflection discussing

• how Shakespeare frames love as an act of release rather than clinging,

• why the poem’s imagined future heightens its emotional impact,

• and how this sonnet offers a fitting close to a month spent exploring love in all its beauty and complexity.

Thank you for joining us each day of this February series. Your presence has made this journey through love poetry deeply meaningful.

Originally published: 1609

Approx. runtime: 6 minutes

Music: “A Very Brady Special” by Kevin MacLeod

A daily love poem for February — with gentle commentary after each reading.

February Love Poem Series – Day 27: “A Leave-Taking” by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Welcome to The Porcupine Presents and our month-long celebration of love in all its forms.

Each day of February, we bring you a new poem — romantic, bittersweet, playful, or aching — followed by a brief reflection to deepen your listening experience.

Today’s poem is “A Leave-Taking” by Algernon Charles Swinburne, a lush and mournful farewell to a love that can no longer continue. Swinburne’s musical, richly emotional style turns parting into something almost ceremonial — a slow, lyrical surrender shaped by memory, longing, and resignation. This is a poem not of anger, but of aching acceptance.

After the poem, stay tuned for a short commentary discussing

• how Swinburne’s musical language transforms sorrow into something strangely beautiful,

• why he often wrote about desire intensified by impossibility,

• and how this poem reframes farewell as an act of tenderness rather than defeat.

Originally published: 1866

Approx. runtime: 7:30 minutes

Music: “A Very Brady Special” by Kevin MacLeod

A classic radio science fiction tale from the golden age — plus bonus commentary and trivia after the show.

2000 Plus – “The Brooklyn Brain” (1950)

Step back into the golden age of radio with 2000 Plus, the thoughtful science fiction series that explored the future through philosophy as much as speculation. In this 1950 episode, “The Brooklyn Brain,” scientific curiosity pushes into unsettling territory, raising questions about intelligence, consciousness, and what happens when knowledge is separated from human context.

After the broadcast, stay tuned for bonus commentary and behind-the-scenes trivia — including how early radio science fiction reflected postwar anxieties, why stories about the mind carried particular weight in 1950, and how 2000 Plus anticipated later philosophical sci-fi themes.

Originally aired: 1950
Approx. runtime: 32 minutes

A daily love poem for February — with gentle commentary after each reading.

February Love Poem Series – Day 26: “The Good-Morrow” by John Donne

Welcome to The Porcupine Presents and our month-long celebration of love in all its forms.
Each day of February, we bring you a new poem — romantic, bittersweet, playful, or aching — followed by a brief reflection to deepen your listening experience.

Today’s poem is “The Good-Morrow” by John Donne, one of the great metaphysical love poems of the seventeenth century. Donne imagines two lovers waking into a new kind of consciousness — leaving behind the trivial distractions of youth and discovering that their shared love forms its own complete world. This is love not just as emotion, but as spiritual and intellectual awakening.

After the poem, stay tuned for a short commentary discussing

• how Donne uses metaphysical conceits to redefine adulthood through love,

• why he imagines the lovers as entire “worlds” reflecting one another,

• and how the poem blends intimacy with philosophy to suggest that mutual love has its own form of immortality.

Originally published: 1633

Approx. runtime: 6 minutes

Music: “A Very Brady Special” by Kevin MacLeod

A daily love poem for February — with gentle commentary after each reading.

February Love Poem Series – Day 25: “When You Are Old” by William Butler Yeats

Welcome to The Porcupine Presents and our month-long celebration of love in all its forms.
Each day of February, we bring you a new poem — romantic, bittersweet, playful, or aching — followed by a brief reflection to deepen your listening experience.

Today’s poem is “When You Are Old” by William Butler Yeats, a tender and haunting meditation on unreturned love. Imagining his beloved in old age, Yeats reflects on the difference between admirers who loved her beauty and the one who loved her inner life — her “pilgrim soul.” It is a poem full of longing, regret, and quiet emotional clarity.

After the poem, stay tuned for a short commentary discussing

• how Yeats uses imagined time to create emotional tension,

• what he means by loving the “pilgrim soul,”

• and why this early lyric remains one of the most poignant works ever written about love that is seen, felt, but never returned.

Originally published: 1892

Approx. runtime: 6 minutes

Music: “A Very Brady Special” by Kevin MacLeod

A daily love poem for February — with gentle commentary after each reading.

February Love Poem Series – Day 24: “Without” by Donald Hall

Welcome to The Porcupine Presents and our month-long celebration of love in all its forms.

Each day of February, we bring you a new poem — romantic, bittersweet, playful, or aching — followed by a brief reflection to deepen your listening experience.

Today’s poem is “Without” by Donald Hall, one of the most unflinching depictions of grief in modern poetry. Written after the death of his wife, the poet Jane Kenyon, the poem gathers the disorientation, emptiness, and surreal exhaustion of mourning into a rolling, breathless litany of absence. Hall recreates a world stripped of seasons, punctuation, color, and meaning — a landscape reshaped entirely by loss.

After the poem, stay tuned for a short commentary discussing

• how Hall uses repetition and collapsed syntax to mirror grief’s overwhelming texture,

• the way medical language merges with imagery of war to portray emotional devastation,

• and how the poem’s brief moment of light — a sparrow, a dog, a loaf of bread — gestures toward the faintest possibility of return.

Originally published: 1998

Approx. runtime: 10 minutes

Music: “A Very Brady Special” by Kevin MacLeod

A classic radio adventure from the golden age — plus bonus commentary and trivia after the show.

The Adventures of Superman – Episodes 1–5 (1940)

Step back into the golden age of radio with The Adventures of Superman, the groundbreaking serialized drama that brought America’s first superhero into homes night after night. In these opening episodes from 1940—beginning with The Baby from Krypton—listeners are introduced to Superman’s origin, his mild-mannered alter ego Clark Kent, and the early dangers that establish his role as a protector in a world that doesn’t yet understand him.

After the broadcast, stay tuned for bonus commentary and behind-the-scenes trivia — including how radio shaped Superman’s mythology, why serialized storytelling was essential to his success, and what these early episodes reveal about American anxieties and hopes at the dawn of a new decade.

Originally aired: February 1940

Approx. runtime: 62 minutes

A daily love poem for February — with gentle commentary after each reading.

February Love Poem Series – Day 23: “Valentine” by Carol Ann Duffy

Welcome to The Porcupine Presents and our month-long celebration of love in all its forms.
Each day of February, we bring you a new poem — romantic, bittersweet, playful, or aching — followed by a brief reflection to deepen your listening experience.

Today’s poem is “Valentine” by Carol Ann Duffy, a sharp, witty, and subversive dismantling of traditional romantic clichés. Rejecting roses and chocolates, Duffy offers an onion instead — a symbol that captures love’s intensity, its sweetness, its sting, and its many layered truths. The poem blends humor with emotional honesty, challenging us to rethink what genuine love looks like.

After the poem, stay tuned for a short commentary discussing

• why Duffy replaces Valentine’s tropes with a raw, domestic metaphor,

• how the poem uses humor and directness to reveal deeper emotional truths,

• and what this rejection of cliché says about honesty, intimacy, and vulnerability.

Originally published: 1993

Approx. runtime: 5:30 minutes

Music: “A Very Brady Special” by Kevin MacLeod

A daily love poem for February — with gentle commentary after each reading.

February Love Poem Series – Day 22: “Love and Harmony” by William Blake

Welcome to The Porcupine Presents and our month-long celebration of love in all its forms.
Each day of February, we bring you a new poem — romantic, bittersweet, playful, or aching — followed by a brief reflection to deepen your listening experience.

Today’s poem is “Love and Harmony” by William Blake, a brief but radiant meditation on the healing power of affection. In just a few lines, Blake imagines love as a force that softens harshness, restores balance, and returns the world to a gentler, more harmonious state. It is a tiny lyric carrying an enormous spiritual truth.

After the poem, stay tuned for a short commentary discussing

• how this piece reflects Blake’s larger symbolic universe,

• why he saw love as a cosmic force rather than just a human emotion,

• and how the poem’s simplicity functions almost like a proverb or blessing.

Originally published: 1783

Approx. runtime: 6 minutes

Music: “A Very Brady Special” by Kevin MacLeod