Episodes

  • Adam Zagajewski
    Mar 15 2023

    We talk about the life-affirming poems of Adam Zagajewski.

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    44 mins
  • Frank Norris, McTeague
    Aug 13 2022

    Claire and I have one of my favorite discussions about a very under-read book. We talk about the relationship between America and money, love and money, obsession, greed, expectations vs. reality, imagination vs. fantasy, nature, beauty, truth, hoarse-voiced entertainers on sub-par cruises, and lots more.

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    1 hr and 3 mins
  • Robert Frost, ”Home Burial”
    Aug 9 2022

    In this episode, I present a recording from a class in which students and I discuss Frost's masterpiece, "Home Burial."

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    56 mins
  • Don Quixote
    Aug 1 2022

    Claire and I talk about the strange wonderful pleasure of this book, focusing on the first 250 pages. More Cervantes discussions to come!

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    44 mins
  • James Agee, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
    Apr 2 2022

    "Everything that is is holy." Translation: CLAIRE IS BACK!!!!!!

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    53 mins
  • ”As Kingfishers Catch Fire...”, a poem by GM Hopkins
    Jan 2 2022

    Some students and I walk through Hopkins' poem, celebrating its particular pleasures and insights, as well as talking in general about how easy it is to access the strange mysterious power of a poem.

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    52 mins
  • Hamlet
    Nov 3 2021

    Who's there? Who are you? Why are you here? What is it all for? Are these the right questions? Can we even know?

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    1 hr and 2 mins
  • How to Enjoy Poetry, and Why
    Oct 27 2021

    I yammer on for a while about how inadequate any theory of poetry is, and then I think I end up outlining a tentative theory of poetry. Oops.

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    56 mins