Episodes

  • "The Night Mirror" by John Hollander
    Mar 15 2026

    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: 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 (/ /)

    Show more Show less
    18 mins
  • Black Magic: Two Poems by Seamus Heaney
    Mar 1 2026

    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: 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 (/ /)

    Show more Show less
    29 mins
  • The Via Negativa of R.S. Thomas
    Feb 16 2026

    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: 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 (/ /)

    Show more Show less
    25 mins
  • The Numinous Pastorals of Robert Wells
    Jan 29 2026

    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: 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 (/ /)

    Show more Show less
    24 mins
  • "Horses on the Camargue" by Roy Campbell
    Jan 14 2026

    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: 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 (/ /)

    Show more Show less
    30 mins
  • 10 Poems I Like Part IV
    Jan 1 2026

    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: 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 (/ /)

    Show more Show less
    37 mins
  • "Root Words" by Forester McClatchey
    Nov 30 2025

    -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: 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 (/ /)

    Show more Show less
    19 mins
  • "In Chandler Country" by Dana Gioia
    Nov 14 2025

    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: 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 (/ /)

    Show more Show less
    32 mins