Episode 52: Shakespeare, Sonnet 73
This sonnet reflects on the autumn of life and an intimate love, and it turns on that love growing stronger in and through its age, even as the body decays. To learn.
Episode 42: Robert Hayden, Frederick Douglass
To read Hayden's poem, click here. Thanks to W.W. Norton & Company for granting us permission to read this poem. Reginald Dwayne Betts's introduction to the Collected Poems of Robert Hayden is.
Episode 40: William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116
In this episode, we provide a close reading of William Shakespeare's Sonnet 116, which allows us to consider the poem's definition of a love that is enduring. In addition, though, we consider.
Episode 28: Countee Cullen, Yet Do I Marvel
Countee Cullen was a major voice of the Harlem Renaissance. Joined by the renowned cultural critic Gerald Early, we here examine together story of Countee Cullen and the astounding sonnet that opens.
Episode 24: Robert Hayden, Those Winter Sundays
Robert Hayden was one of the greatest American poets of the twentieth century. His poems are known for their formal grace and his deep and broad explorations of the African American experience..
Episode 22: Two Poems of World War I
In this episode, we talk with Vince Sherry about two poems of WWI: Rupert Brooke's "The Soldier" and Ivor Gurney's "To His Love." The first poem, a stately beauty, imagines war almost.
Episode 17: Gerard Manley Hopkins, Pied Beauty
Pied Beauty Glory be to God for dappled things – For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings; Landscape.
Episode 16: John Milton, When I Consider How My Light is Spent
The episode explores Milton's great sonnet spun from the difficulties of middle age and new disappointments. We consider how he pulls consolation from his sense of defeat and near despair. Faced with.