Episodios

  • "Preludes to Memnon 1:4-5" by Conrad Aiken
    Sep 1 2025

    Topics discussed in this episode include:

    -My recent class at the Frost Farm Conference

    -My trip to Europe

    -Come to the ALSCW Conference!

    -Part I and Part II of my essay on French poetry in Marginalia Review of Books

    -New poems and translations of mine in the latest issue of Literary Matters

    -My essays The Iron Lyre and The Monumentalist Manifesto

    -The most recent SLEERICKETS

    -The Romantic within the Classicist

    -Philosophy within poetry

    -The mystique of Santayana

    -"The Morning Song of Senlin" by Conrad Aiken

    -"The Clerk's Journal" and "The House of Dust" by Conrad Aiken

    -"Under the Volcano" by Malcolm Lowry

    -"Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" by John Berendt

    -The Colossi of Memnon

    -Metrical trickery and incorporating Whitman into iambs.

    -Stevensian Idealism and the Supreme Fiction

    -Neoplatonism and Ukiyo

    -From Solipsism to Pantheism

    -From Berkeley to Kant

    -The meaning of "God's Image"

    -Dialectical Monism, the Dyad, and the Tao

    Support the show

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    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: versecraftpodcast@gmail.com

    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 (/ /)

    Más Menos
    30 m
  • Singing the Counter-Revolution: Ryan Wilson Interviews EPB
    Aug 18 2025

    Topics mentioned in this episode:


    -The use of the term “poetry” and the death of the genuine article

    -Building metrical literacy

    -My essay “The Iron Lyre”

    -Modern small-souledness

    -My essay “The Poisoned Well: Melville and Gnosticism”

    -My essay “The Monumentalist Manifesto”

    -“Science, Politics, and Gnosticism” by Eric Voegelin

    -“The Whiteness of the Whale” in Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick”

    -“The Gnostic Gospels” ed. Elaine Pagels

    -“Fragment of a Lost Gnostic Poem of the 12th Century” by Melville

    -“The Maldive Shark” by Melville

    -My episode “Giving the Devil His Due: The Value of the Romantic Anti-Hero”

    -“The Brothers Karamazov” by Dostoevsky

    -My episode “What is Art? What Is It For?”

    -“J.V. Cunningham's Counter-Revolution” by James Matthew Wilson

    -“Poetry and Religion” by Les Murray

    -Myth as the missing link between philosophy, religion, and poetry

    Support the show

    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: versecraftpodcast@gmail.com

    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 (/ /)

    Más Menos
    46 m
  • LIVE @ St. Thomas: "The Tear" by Richard Crashaw
    Aug 6 2025

    Text of poem here

    Soundtrack to this episode

    Topics discussed in this episode:

    -The University of St. Thomas, Houston

    -"The Flaming Heart" by Mario Praz

    -Giambattista Marino

    -Metaphysical vs. Baroque

    -The poetry of rapture

    -The Greek Anthology

    -Laudianism

    -Crashaw's Teresa poems

    -Mixed meter and phantom beats

    -"Venus and Adonis" by Billy Shakes

    -The saintly grief in your wedding ring

    -Aurora, not Selene!

    -"The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia" by Sir Philip Sidney

    -"On a Drop of Dew" by Andrew Marvell

    -The nurturing sublime

    -A humanized heaven in human eyes

    Support the show

    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: versecraftpodcast@gmail.com

    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 (/ /)

    Más Menos
    29 m
  • Hermetic Angelology: An Interview with Ryan Wilson
    Jul 22 2025

    Topics discussed in this episode include:

    -The MFA Program at the University of St. Thomas

    -My episode on Ryan’s poem “Disobedience”

    -"How to Think Like a Poet" by Ryan Wilson

    -Wiseblood Books

    -New editions of Dryden and Pope soon come!

    -“The Catholic Writer Today” by Dana Gioia

    -David Rothman

    -New Verse Review’s St. Thomas issue

    -“A Season in Hell” by Arthur Rimbaud

    -“Pure and Impure Poetry” by Robert Penn Warren

    -The Fugitives, Agrarians, and New Critics

    -“The Waste Land” by T.S. Eliot

    -“Dante” by T.S. Eliot

    -“The World’s Body” by John Crowe Ransom

    -“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot

    -“From Ritual to Romance” by Jessie Weston

    -“Proteus Bound” by Ryan Wilson

    -“El Desdichado” by Gerard de Nerval

    -“An Archaic Torso of Apollo” by Rainer Maria Rilke

    -Joyce’s “Ulysses” and the mythic method

    -Aestheticism and Theophile Gautier

    -Negative Capability

    -Blake, Picasso, and derangement

    -Four Roses whiskey (sponsor me!)

    -“Rob Roy,” by Sir Walter Scott

    -“For the Highway Medians” by Matthew Buckley Smith

    -“To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” by Robert Herrick

    -A hypostatic, moral exegesis of the Odyssey

    -The Aeneid as tragedy

    -“Imitations” by Robert Lowell

    -Plutarch’s “Lives”

    -“Annus Mirabilis” by John Dryden

    -Dryden vs. Pope

    -Pope’s “Ode On Solitude” and “Essay On Man”

    -“Heorot” by Ryan Wilson

    Support the show

    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: versecraftpodcast@gmail.com

    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 (/ /)

    Más Menos
    57 m
  • The Whole in One: An Interview with James Matthew Wilson
    Jul 9 2025

    Topics discussed in this episode include:

    Wiseblood Books

    The University of St. Thomas MFA Program

    My episode on James Matthew Wilson

    "The Fortunes of Poetry in an Age of Unmaking" by James Matthew Wilson

    "The Wayward Thomist" by James Matthew Wilson

    The Complete Essays of J.V. Cunningham

    Jacques Maritain

    "Crime and Punishment" by Dostoevsky

    "La Vita Nuova" by Dante

    Matthew 16

    "In Ghostlight" by Ryan Wilson

    "The River of the Immaculate Conception" by James Matthew Wilson

    "Mass of the Americas" by Frank La Rocca

    "The Bridge" by Hart Crane

    "The Wasteland" by T.S. Eliot

    “Tradition and the Individual Talent” by T.S. Eliot

    “Four Quartets” by T.S. Eliot

    “The Illusion of Reaction” by Yvor Winters

    “All the Fun’s In How You Say a Thing” by Timothy Steele

    “Missing Measures” by Timothy Steele

    F.T. Prince

    “Fragment of a Lost Gnostic Poem of the 12th Century” by Herman Melville

    My episode on Helen Pinkerton

    “Love in the Western World” by Denis de Rougemont

    “Agape and Eros” by Anders Nygren

    “The Marriage” by Yvor Winters

    “Everything That Rises Must Converge” by Flannery O’Connor

    “Wiped Out” by James Matthew Wilson

    “The Moon and Sixpence” by W. Somerset Maugh

    Support the show

    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: versecraftpodcast@gmail.com

    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 (/ /)

    Más Menos
    1 h y 18 m
  • Footnotes to Job: The Versecraft 100th ep AMA!
    Jun 24 2025

    Topics discussed in this episode include:

    Matthew Buckley Smith over at SLEERICKETS

    Alice Allan over at Poetry Says and In Future Posts

    Ethan McGuire over at The Flummoxed

    Zina Gomez Liss over at The Beauty of Things

    Cameron Clark over at Minor Tiresias

    Rationalist, Socialist, Humanist, Bicameral Demo-Oligarchic Utopia?

    Ironkraft and Cheesecraft

    An incomplete list of people I envy: Kendrick Lamar, Shane McCrae, James Matthew Wilson, Chris Childers, Dick Davis, Amit Majmudar, Matthew Buckley Smith, Bill Coyle, Don Paterson, etc. etc.

    An incomplete list of people who inspire me: Yvor Winters, Irving Babbitt, Matthew Arnold, William Shakespeare, John Milton, the Attic Tragedians, E.A. Robinson, Wallace Stevens, Edgar Bowers, Richard Wilbur, Aristotle, Baruch Spinoza, Arthur Schopenhauer, Vyasa, Simone Weil, William Morris.

    The Book of Job

    Isaiah 45:7

    Alitu and Buzzsprout

    Kol Nidre

    My episode with Zina and David on Fireside Chat

    Harold Bloom

    The Archimedean point

    Support the show

    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: versecraftpodcast@gmail.com

    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 (/ /)

    Más Menos
    56 m
  • 10 Poems I Like Part III
    Jun 10 2025

    Poems/Prose Lyrics featured:


    "The Eagles" by Jones Very

    "The Oracles" by A.E. Housman

    "An Equation" by Hyam Plutzik

    "Plato and the Serpent" by Catherine Davis

    "Crow's Theology" by Ted Hughes

    "Changeling" by Rhina Espaillat

    "Hardy" by Robert Mezey

    "The Master of Metaphor" by Carl Dennis

    "Lust" by J.D. McClatchy

    "An Incident in the Sublime" by Wyatt Prunty


    Poems/Prose Lyrics mentioned:


    "Jones Very in the Parlor" by Brian Brodeur

    "The Proverbs of Hell" by William Blake

    "Antarctica" by Elijah Perseus Blumov


    Support the show

    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: versecraftpodcast@gmail.com

    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 (/ /)

    Más Menos
    40 m
  • Fitzgerald Strikes Back: Rothman's Rebuttal
    May 27 2025

    Topics discussed in this episode:

    -Email me your questions!!

    -Cameron's substack, "Minor Tiresias"

    -My poem, "At Woodlawn" in Merion West

    -My poem, "Aztec Support" in Light

    -My episode on Learning the Secrets of English Verse

    -"Missing Measures" and "All the Fun's In How You Say A Thing" by Timothy Steele

    -De Sacra Poesi Hebraeorum

    -"Notes On Metre" by Otto Jespersen

    -The Trager-Smith school of linguistics

    -The Halle-Keyser theory of prosody

    -Paul Kiparsky

    -Seymour Chapman

    -"The Rhythms of English Poetry" by Derek Attridge

    -"The Origin of Writing" by Roy Harris

    Support the show

    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: versecraftpodcast@gmail.com

    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 (/ /)

    Más Menos
    24 m