Versecraft

Read this episode on Substack!

Text of the poem here.

Mea culpa: Yes, in the heat of the moment, I mispronounced mise en scene. A la guillotine! 

Topics discussed include:

-Some po-biz kvetching

-Morri Creech! 

-The telos of Versecraft

-The "ghost" of pentameter

-The Stevensian cosmovision and the metaphysics of metaphor

-The axis mundi

-Nicholas of Cusa and coincidentia oppositorum

-The Moirai

-Contronyms

-"An Ordinary Childhood" by Morri Creech

-Selve oscura dolce

-I.A. Richards and tenor & vehicle

-"Tintern Abbey" by William Wordsworth

-"Poem Without Metaphors" by Matthew Buckley Smith

-The Blumovian Review

-My chapbook, "The Necklace of Harmonia"

-My book, "Against Oblivion"

Support the show

VISIT MY WEBSITE HERE.

BUY VERSECRAFT MERCH HERE.

VISIT THE VERSECRAFT SUBSTACK HERE.

Please subscribe, rate, and review! Thanks so much for listening.

You can leave me a tip, support the podcast, or request a commission here!

TikTok:  @versecraft
Send me a note at: [email protected]

My favorite poetry podcasts for:
Sharp thoughts and cutting truths (Matthew): Sleerickets 
Lovely introspection and sensitive reflection (Alice): Poetry Says
The landscape of Ohioan poetry (Jeremy): Poetry Spotlight 

Supported in part by The Ohio Poetry Association
Art by David Anthony Klug

List of the most common metrical feet: 
Iamb: weak-STRONG (u /)
Trochee: STRONG-weak (/ u)
Anapest: weak-weak-STRONG (u u /)
Amphibrach: weak-STRONG-weak (u / u)
Dactyl: STRONG-weak-weak (/ u u)
Cretic: STRONG-weak-STRONG (/ u /)
Pyrrhic: weak-weak (u u)
Spondee: STRONG-STRONG (/ /)

Read this episode on Substack and subscribe!

Text of poem

Topics discussed include:

-Plato's "Ion"

-The Muses and Schizophrenia

-Poets must be weirdos

-The normies are the willing slaves of the mad

-Lewis's trilemma

-The American Confessionals and the French Decadents

-The Wild 18th century

-Go read William Cowper's "The Task!"

-Samuel Johnson, Richard Savage, William Collins, Christopher Smart, William Blake, Friederich Holderlin, The Marquis de Sade

-Jubilate Agno, The Sorrows of Young Werther, Thomson's The Seasons, Tristram Shandy

-The man who thought he was Byron

-"I Am" by John Clare

-Vers libre vs. verse libere

-"Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold

-The Masque of the Red Death

-Et in Arcadia Ego

Support the show

VISIT MY WEBSITE HERE.

BUY VERSECRAFT MERCH HERE.

VISIT THE VERSECRAFT SUBSTACK HERE.

Please subscribe, rate, and review! Thanks so much for listening.

You can leave me a tip, support the podcast, or request a commission here!

TikTok:  @versecraft
Send me a note at: [email protected]

My favorite poetry podcasts for:
Sharp thoughts and cutting truths (Matthew): Sleerickets 
Lovely introspection and sensitive reflection (Alice): Poetry Says
The landscape of Ohioan poetry (Jeremy): Poetry Spotlight 

Supported in part by The Ohio Poetry Association
Art by David Anthony Klug

List of the most common metrical feet: 
Iamb: weak-STRONG (u /)
Trochee: STRONG-weak (/ u)
Anapest: weak-weak-STRONG (u u /)
Amphibrach: weak-STRONG-weak (u / u)
Dactyl: STRONG-weak-weak (/ u u)
Cretic: STRONG-weak-STRONG (/ u /)
Pyrrhic: weak-weak (u u)
Spondee: STRONG-STRONG (/ /)

Read this episode (and the poem) on Substack!

Topics discussed include:

-Going to Oaxaca!

-"Poetry and Music" and "Rhyme's Reason" by John Hollander

-My Nemerov episode

-My Donaghy episode

-Jacques Lacan and the "mirror phase"

-The nightmare of the self vs. the nightmare of the unconscious

-The survival of Romanticism 

Support the show

VISIT MY WEBSITE HERE.

BUY VERSECRAFT MERCH HERE.

VISIT THE VERSECRAFT SUBSTACK HERE.

Please subscribe, rate, and review! Thanks so much for listening.

You can leave me a tip, support the podcast, or request a commission here!

TikTok:  @versecraft
Send me a note at: [email protected]

My favorite poetry podcasts for:
Sharp thoughts and cutting truths (Matthew): Sleerickets 
Lovely introspection and sensitive reflection (Alice): Poetry Says
The landscape of Ohioan poetry (Jeremy): Poetry Spotlight 

Supported in part by The Ohio Poetry Association
Art by David Anthony Klug

List of the most common metrical feet: 
Iamb: weak-STRONG (u /)
Trochee: STRONG-weak (/ u)
Anapest: weak-weak-STRONG (u u /)
Amphibrach: weak-STRONG-weak (u / u)
Dactyl: STRONG-weak-weak (/ u u)
Cretic: STRONG-weak-STRONG (/ u /)
Pyrrhic: weak-weak (u u)
Spondee: STRONG-STRONG (/ /)

Read this essay on Substack! 

Read the poems: "The Early Purges" and "Limbo."

Topics mentioned:

-Poetry careerism in the 21st century

-"The Iron Lyre"

-The perennial appeal of the Gentleman Farmer Poet

-Heaney's bog poems

-The value of exposure to death

-Rural vs. Urban morality

-"The Need of Being Versed in Country Things" by Robert Frost

-Piscine Christianity

-"At the Fishhouses" by Elizabeth Bishop

-My Yucatan travelogue

-My most recent Sleerickets appearance

Support the show

VISIT MY WEBSITE HERE.

BUY VERSECRAFT MERCH HERE.

VISIT THE VERSECRAFT SUBSTACK HERE.

Please subscribe, rate, and review! Thanks so much for listening.

You can leave me a tip, support the podcast, or request a commission here!

TikTok:  @versecraft
Send me a note at: [email protected]

My favorite poetry podcasts for:
Sharp thoughts and cutting truths (Matthew): Sleerickets 
Lovely introspection and sensitive reflection (Alice): Poetry Says
The landscape of Ohioan poetry (Jeremy): Poetry Spotlight 

Supported in part by The Ohio Poetry Association
Art by David Anthony Klug

List of the most common metrical feet: 
Iamb: weak-STRONG (u /)
Trochee: STRONG-weak (/ u)
Anapest: weak-weak-STRONG (u u /)
Amphibrach: weak-STRONG-weak (u / u)
Dactyl: STRONG-weak-weak (/ u u)
Cretic: STRONG-weak-STRONG (/ u /)
Pyrrhic: weak-weak (u u)
Spondee: STRONG-STRONG (/ /)

Read this essay and support the show on Substack! 

Topics discussed in this episode include:

R.S. Thomas's poems:

-Mediations

-Kneeling

-Via Negativa

-The Absence

-Revision

-Ernest Hilbert

-Alexander Fayne's essay on R.S. Thomas

-Pascal's "Night of Fire"

-Apophatic theology 

-John Scotus Erigena, Philo, Pseudo-Dionysius, Weil, etc. 

-Keats's "Ode On A Grecian Urn"

-Milton's "On His Blindness" 

Support the show

VISIT MY WEBSITE HERE.

BUY VERSECRAFT MERCH HERE.

VISIT THE VERSECRAFT SUBSTACK HERE.

Please subscribe, rate, and review! Thanks so much for listening.

You can leave me a tip, support the podcast, or request a commission here!

TikTok:  @versecraft
Send me a note at: [email protected]

My favorite poetry podcasts for:
Sharp thoughts and cutting truths (Matthew): Sleerickets 
Lovely introspection and sensitive reflection (Alice): Poetry Says
The landscape of Ohioan poetry (Jeremy): Poetry Spotlight 

Supported in part by The Ohio Poetry Association
Art by David Anthony Klug

List of the most common metrical feet: 
Iamb: weak-STRONG (u /)
Trochee: STRONG-weak (/ u)
Anapest: weak-weak-STRONG (u u /)
Amphibrach: weak-STRONG-weak (u / u)
Dactyl: STRONG-weak-weak (/ u u)
Cretic: STRONG-weak-STRONG (/ u /)
Pyrrhic: weak-weak (u u)
Spondee: STRONG-STRONG (/ /)

Read this episode in essay form here! 

Topics discussed in this episode include:

-The Cambridge Three: Dick Davis, Robert Wells, Clive Wilmer

-My Interview with Dick Davis

-The Stanford Poets: Thom Gunn, Edgar Bowers, Yvor Winters, etc.

-Virgil's Georgics

-The Idylls of Theocritus

-Wells poems discussed: "A Caution," "Deus Loci," "The Unnamed Pool," "The Bathing Place," "The Last of Summer."

-Episodes on the pathetic fallacy here and here

-Apophasis

-"Le Cimetiere Marin" by Paul Valery

-"The Slow Pacific Swell" by Yvor Winters

-Sensory deprivation tanks

-Mysticism vs. Love

Support the show

VISIT MY WEBSITE HERE.

BUY VERSECRAFT MERCH HERE.

VISIT THE VERSECRAFT SUBSTACK HERE.

Please subscribe, rate, and review! Thanks so much for listening.

You can leave me a tip, support the podcast, or request a commission here!

TikTok:  @versecraft
Send me a note at: [email protected]

My favorite poetry podcasts for:
Sharp thoughts and cutting truths (Matthew): Sleerickets 
Lovely introspection and sensitive reflection (Alice): Poetry Says
The landscape of Ohioan poetry (Jeremy): Poetry Spotlight 

Supported in part by The Ohio Poetry Association
Art by David Anthony Klug

List of the most common metrical feet: 
Iamb: weak-STRONG (u /)
Trochee: STRONG-weak (/ u)
Anapest: weak-weak-STRONG (u u /)
Amphibrach: weak-STRONG-weak (u / u)
Dactyl: STRONG-weak-weak (/ u u)
Cretic: STRONG-weak-STRONG (/ u /)
Pyrrhic: weak-weak (u u)
Spondee: STRONG-STRONG (/ /)

Read the poem here.

Topics discussed in this episode include:

-Transcending the smallness of one's time

-The Flaming Terrapin

-The Voorslag Affair

-Campbell against the world, i.e. punching Steve Spender in the face

-Ambivalent stanzas

-The Waste Land" by T.S. Eliot

-"Sunday Morning" by Wallace Stevens

-"Kubla Khan" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

-"The Whiteness of the Whale" by Herman Melville

-A Nietzschean response to apocalypse

Support the show

VISIT MY WEBSITE HERE.

BUY VERSECRAFT MERCH HERE.

VISIT THE VERSECRAFT SUBSTACK HERE.

Please subscribe, rate, and review! Thanks so much for listening.

You can leave me a tip, support the podcast, or request a commission here!

TikTok:  @versecraft
Send me a note at: [email protected]

My favorite poetry podcasts for:
Sharp thoughts and cutting truths (Matthew): Sleerickets 
Lovely introspection and sensitive reflection (Alice): Poetry Says
The landscape of Ohioan poetry (Jeremy): Poetry Spotlight 

Supported in part by The Ohio Poetry Association
Art by David Anthony Klug

List of the most common metrical feet: 
Iamb: weak-STRONG (u /)
Trochee: STRONG-weak (/ u)
Anapest: weak-weak-STRONG (u u /)
Amphibrach: weak-STRONG-weak (u / u)
Dactyl: STRONG-weak-weak (/ u u)
Cretic: STRONG-weak-STRONG (/ u /)
Pyrrhic: weak-weak (u u)
Spondee: STRONG-STRONG (/ /)

Read the episode on Substack here

Poems discussed in this episode:

"Shall Earth No More Inspire Thee" by Emily Bronte

"Cargoes" by John Masefield

"From Stone to Steel" by E.J. Pratt

"The Hill" by Rupert Brooke

"When the Ecstatic Body Grips" by E.R. Dodds

"For My Daughter" by Weldon Kees

"Poetry and Religion" by Les Murray

"Soul" by Alan Shapiro

"Where the River Meets the Sound" by Suzanne Doyle

"Clear Water" by Catherine Tufariello

Support the show

VISIT MY WEBSITE HERE.

BUY VERSECRAFT MERCH HERE.

VISIT THE VERSECRAFT SUBSTACK HERE.

Please subscribe, rate, and review! Thanks so much for listening.

You can leave me a tip, support the podcast, or request a commission here!

TikTok:  @versecraft
Send me a note at: [email protected]

My favorite poetry podcasts for:
Sharp thoughts and cutting truths (Matthew): Sleerickets 
Lovely introspection and sensitive reflection (Alice): Poetry Says
The landscape of Ohioan poetry (Jeremy): Poetry Spotlight 

Supported in part by The Ohio Poetry Association
Art by David Anthony Klug

List of the most common metrical feet: 
Iamb: weak-STRONG (u /)
Trochee: STRONG-weak (/ u)
Anapest: weak-weak-STRONG (u u /)
Amphibrach: weak-STRONG-weak (u / u)
Dactyl: STRONG-weak-weak (/ u u)
Cretic: STRONG-weak-STRONG (/ u /)
Pyrrhic: weak-weak (u u)
Spondee: STRONG-STRONG (/ /)

-Read the poem... by pre-ordering Forester’s new collection here! 

-Or here, on Substack! 

-The Versecraft Substack

-My annus mirabilis

-Forester McClatchey! 

-Frederick Goddard Tuckerman

-Renovating the sonnet-house

-Mycorrhizal intelligence

-Is the pathos fallacious? 

-A thinking cheese for the thinking man

-The ents at the entmoot

-My recent episode on Sleerickets with Alice

-Cosmic double-consciousness

-Dark circles of eternity and oblivion

Support the show

VISIT MY WEBSITE HERE.

BUY VERSECRAFT MERCH HERE.

VISIT THE VERSECRAFT SUBSTACK HERE.

Please subscribe, rate, and review! Thanks so much for listening.

You can leave me a tip, support the podcast, or request a commission here!

TikTok:  @versecraft
Send me a note at: [email protected]

My favorite poetry podcasts for:
Sharp thoughts and cutting truths (Matthew): Sleerickets 
Lovely introspection and sensitive reflection (Alice): Poetry Says
The landscape of Ohioan poetry (Jeremy): Poetry Spotlight 

Supported in part by The Ohio Poetry Association
Art by David Anthony Klug

List of the most common metrical feet: 
Iamb: weak-STRONG (u /)
Trochee: STRONG-weak (/ u)
Anapest: weak-weak-STRONG (u u /)
Amphibrach: weak-STRONG-weak (u / u)
Dactyl: STRONG-weak-weak (/ u u)
Cretic: STRONG-weak-STRONG (/ u /)
Pyrrhic: weak-weak (u u)
Spondee: STRONG-STRONG (/ /)

Text of the poem here.

Read the transcript of this episode here!

Topics discussed in this episode include:

-My new website!

-My Substack

-The meaning and history of New Formalism

-“Can Poetry Matter?” by Dana Gioia

-The Big Read and Poetry Out Loud

-“The Catholic Writer Today” by Dana Gioia

-“Poetry as Enchantment” by Dana Gioia

-Boris Dralyuk on Noir Poetry

-The Noir hero

-Christopher Marlowe and Charles Marlow

-The Santa Ana winds

-“Red Wind” by Raymond Chandler

-“The Lady in the Lake” by Raymond Chandler

-A net of coins

-Plato FM Radio 

-Of beauty and youth

-Of coyotes, dogs, and men

Support the show

VISIT MY WEBSITE HERE.

BUY VERSECRAFT MERCH HERE.

VISIT THE VERSECRAFT SUBSTACK HERE.

Please subscribe, rate, and review! Thanks so much for listening.

You can leave me a tip, support the podcast, or request a commission here!

TikTok:  @versecraft
Send me a note at: [email protected]

My favorite poetry podcasts for:
Sharp thoughts and cutting truths (Matthew): Sleerickets 
Lovely introspection and sensitive reflection (Alice): Poetry Says
The landscape of Ohioan poetry (Jeremy): Poetry Spotlight 

Supported in part by The Ohio Poetry Association
Art by David Anthony Klug

List of the most common metrical feet: 
Iamb: weak-STRONG (u /)
Trochee: STRONG-weak (/ u)
Anapest: weak-weak-STRONG (u u /)
Amphibrach: weak-STRONG-weak (u / u)
Dactyl: STRONG-weak-weak (/ u u)
Cretic: STRONG-weak-STRONG (/ u /)
Pyrrhic: weak-weak (u u)
Spondee: STRONG-STRONG (/ /)