Episodios

  • 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
  • "De Anima" by Howard Nemerov
    May 15 2025

    Soundtrack to this episode

    Text of poem here

    Send me your AMA questions for Versecraft 100!

    Topics discussed in this episode include:

    -Greatest Generation poets

    -"Because You Asked About the Line Between Prose and Poetry" by Howard Nemerov

    -"De Anima" by Aristotle

    -On loose iambics

    -The ghost of Sapphics

    -A transexual volta

    -Life engenders the great romance of death

    -"Spring and Fall" by Gerard Manley Hopkins

    -The nature of empathy and tragedy

    -Orpheus and Eurydice and my Shane McCrae Episode

    -Cupid like you've never seen him before

    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
    23 m
  • "Bird Watcher" by Clive Wilmer (R.I.P.)
    May 1 2025

    Soundtrack to this episode

    Text of poem:


    Bird Watcher

    It returns to the same nest. The watcher lies

    beneath spring brushwood to await its coming–

    at watch so long he dreams himself becoming

    less than himself and more, the landscape’s eyes.


    Though far beyond his eyes, beyond the range

    of field-glasses, he knows it breaks no bonds:

    its instinct to his knowledge corresponds,

    riding the current of the season’s change.


    What is there in a small bird’s blood that learns

    to plot its course by sun and stars, being drawn

    yearly toward a lost, remembered dawn?

    The watcher broods on this. The bird returns.


    And all its colours flash where he attends–

    a deep blue mantling rust and white. It sings

    caged in his retina; then on curving wings

    veers off to vanish where the human ends.


    Topics discussed in this episode include:

    -My episode with Zina and David on Fireside Chat

    -My essay, The Iron Lyre

    -My essay, The Monumentalist Manifesto

    -Subscribe to the Versecraft substack!

    -Also subscribe to Zina, David, Matthew, Ethan, Alice, Steve, and Chris's substacks!

    -My interview with Dick Davis

    -John Ruskin and William Morris

    -The Books of Enoch

    -"To A Waterfowl" by William Cullen Bryant

    -"Sunday Morning" by Wallace Stevens

    -A Poeta Ad Avem

    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
    17 m
  • Learning the Secrets of English Verse
    Apr 17 2025

    Topics discussed in this episode include:

    -Go buy Learning the Secrets of English Verse!

    -The Monumentalist Manifesto

    -My episode, The Idea Of A Poetry Conservatory

    -Poetry as skill

    -The Fitzgerald system of scansion

    -Parallelism, Syllabics, Loose Iambics, Stress-counting, rhyme-driving, sprung rhythm, oh my!

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

    -Sonnets don't cure polio, but they're pretty great.

    -Rhyme Royal, Ottava Rima, Spenserians, Onegin, oh my!

    -L'dor Vador

    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
    32 m
  • The Ern Malley Hoax! (and "Monologue," by James McAuley)
    Mar 31 2025

    Soundtrack to this episode

    Text of poem

    Topics discussed include:

    -Your host has an identity crisis

    -RIP POETRY SAYS!

    -Listen to Alice on Milton and with me.

    -Moira Egan!

    -My Pindar essay

    -My Melville essay

    -The Iron Lyre!

    -Matthew, Alice, and I argue about The Iron Lyre

    -THE ERN MALLEY HOAX

    -The New York School and the Generation of '68

    -Read the entire text of The Darkening Ecliptic here.

    -A Primer of English Versification

    -Dickinson and Blake

    -The loneliness of love

    -The mysticism of lust

    -Embracing the eternal vibration, man.

    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
    30 m
  • On Translation: 5 Ways of Looking at Lope
    Mar 5 2025

    Soundtrack to this episode

    Link to translations


    Topics discussed:


    -Alice tackles Milton on Poetry Says

    -Check out my Substack here!

    -My episode on Ryan Wilson

    -My episode on Geoffrey Hill

    -The long and short of a long fellow

    -Longfellow's Dante

    -The Monster of Literature

    -Romance languages and hendecasyllabics

    -Faithful to which fidelity?

    -Translational hijinks ensue

    -Mosaic rhymes!

    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
    32 m