Recent Episodes
Nov. 30, 2025
"The Secret" by Emily Dickinson
Some things that fly there be, — Birds, hours, the bumble-bee: Of these no elegy. Some things that stay there be, — Grief, hills, eternity: Nor this behooveth me. There are, that resting, rise. Can I expound the skies? How st...
Nov. 23, 2025
"The Negro Speaks of Rivers" by Langston Hughes
I’ve known rivers: I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the...
Nov. 16, 2025
"Nancibel" by Bliss Carmen
The ghost of a wind came over the hill, While day for a moment forgot to die, And stirred the sheaves Of the millet leaves, As Nancibel went by. Out of the lands of Long Ago, Into the land of By and By, Faded the gleam Of a j...
Nov. 9, 2025
"In a Station of the Metro" by Ezra Pound
The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough.
Nov. 2, 2025
"Unfortunate Coincidence" by Dorothy Parker
By the time you swear you’re his, Shivering and sighing, And he vows his passion is Infinite, undying— Lady, make a note of this: One of you is lying.
Oct. 26, 2025
"First Fig" by Edna St. Vincent Millay
My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends— It gives a lovely light!
Recent Blog Posts
Nov. 30, 2025
The Riddle Still Lies: Decoding Emily Dickinson’s "The Secret"
Emily Dickinson is the undisputed master of concise verse, and her poem “The Secret” (XIV in Poems, Series 1) is a perfect example of her compressed, riddle-like genius. Dickinson, who rarely left her homestead, often pondered the grand …
Nov. 23, 2025
Ancient, Dusky Rivers: The Enduring Soul in Langston Hughes' "The Neg…
Langston Hughes’ “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” first published in The Crisis in June 1921, is one of the most famous and foundational poems of the Harlem Renaissance. Hughes wrote the brief poem in 1920 while crossing the Mississip…
Nov. 16, 2025
The Ghost of a Wind: Bliss Carman's Lyrical "Nancibel"
Bliss Carman’s “Nancibel,” published in 1895, is a shimmering piece of lyrical, late-Romantic poetry. It captures a moment of intense, fleeting natural beauty inextricably linked to human memory and presence. While Carman—one…