On the day the Nazis invade Poland, beginning the Second World War, a poet nurses a drink in a New York bar. The unwarlike Auden has just immigrated to the United States from England, yet he feels a shadow rising behind him in the east that no one will be able to escape. Auden looks without and within, contemplating the primordial destructive urge that see ... Show More
Apr 2024
EP18 - The Numb Fingers | Keats, “The Eve of St. Agnes” (Part One)
John Keats, “The Eve of St. Agnes” (Part One). The first of a two-part episode that considers John Keats’ gorgeous poem. Set in a dreamy medieval world of castles, blood feuds and esoteric folk rituals, Keats gives us a love story with some of the lushest and most opulent imagery ... Show More
1h 14m
May 2024
EP19 - Into the Storm | Keats, “The Eve of St. Agnes” (Part Two)
John Keats, “The Eve of St. Agnes,” (Part Two). Today we conclude our examination of Keats’ poem, looking at three pairs of stanzas that describe the strange courtship of Porphyro and Madeline and their escape from the castle.We love hearing from all of you. Please email us at Pr ... Show More
1 h
Jun 2024
EP20 - Star and Star Lover | Sidney, Astrophil and Stella
Sir Philip Sidney, Astrophil and Stella. Over the course of the sixteenth century English poets experimented with the sonnet form invented by their Italian neighbours, and the Petrarchan conventions that came with it. The goal was a long sequence of many short poems which chronic ... Show More
1h 21m
Dec 2021
Ep 507 - If on a winter's night a traveler, by Italo Calvino
Sometimes a book is so meta it sort of breaks your brain! How to talk about a book that is all beginnings and no ends? How to discuss a book that enlists You, the Reader, in its chicanery? We try to get on the wavelength with Calvino's text. You be the judge of if we get there. O ... Show More
1h 6m
Dec 2022
472 The Art of Not Knowing
In this special episode, Jacke pays tribute to a friend, including a consideration of endings and beginnings, mystery and grace, and two powerful works: John Berger's The Shape of a Pocket and James Joyce's masterpiece "The Dead."
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1h 6m
Nov 2023
568 The Tempest (with Laurie Frankel)
Jacke celebrates autumn with a look at Shakespeare's Sonnet #73 ("That time of year thou mayst in me behold"), then welcomes novelist Laurie Frankel (Family Family, One Two Three) for a Wednesday-before-Thanksgiving discussion of one of Shakespeare's last works, The Tempest.
Mus ... Show More
1h 18m