Started during the surge of the Coronavirus, when most of us were told to stay at home.
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John Nesbitt Podcasts
I give my view on what's happening up at Northern Ireland's Parliament in Stormont and across the political spectrum in the province as a whole.
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The Daily Poem offers one essential poem each weekday morning. From Shakespeare and John Donne to Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson, The Daily Poem curates a broad and generous audio anthology of the best poetry ever written, read-aloud by David Kern and an assortment of various contributors. Some lite commentary is included and the shorter poems are often read twice, as time permits. The Daily Poem is presented by Goldberry Studios. dailypoempod.substack.com
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It's impossible to be an expert on everything. Learning from the experts helps us gain an understanding of how to be better at the tasks we undertake. On "Learning from Smart People" you'll gather knowledge from the people with the expertise!
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Discussing all things spooky, creepy and weird. If you have a story you’d like me to read, please submit it to [email protected]. If you’re a good speaker, record yourself reading your story and I may include it in a future episode. If you’re a fiction writer, send in your short story for review as well.
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Would you like some music to go with your story? Alex Austin hopes you will. He’s integrated the work of 20 contemporary bands and 40 songs into The Red Album of Asbury Park Remixed. It’s the late Sixties, the Beatles intact, Jimi Hendrix exploding and the Doors demanding the world. And on the East Coast, famed resort Asbury Park, New Jersey, will become the epicenter of a new brand of rock and roll. But in January 1968, a boardwalk Liverpool lies in the future. Escalating crime and a fading ...
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In today’s poem, a young Geoffrey Hill is looking for a story to believe in. Happy reading. Known as one of the greatest poets of his generation writing in English, and one of the most important poets of the 20th century, Geoffrey Hill lived a life dedicated to poetry and scholarship, morality and faith. He was born in 1932 in Worcestershire, Engla…
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Prince Hal's soliloquy from Henry IV, pt.1 ("herein will I imitate the sun")
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5:33In today’s poem, Shakespeare puts the theatre in political theater via a candid moment with the future King Henry V in Henry IV pt. 1, Act 1, Scene 2. Happy reading! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe…
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Today’s poem is a short meditation on grief made enduringly-famous after Orlando Gibbons set it to music. You can hear an arrangement of that piece here. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe…
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Today’s poem goes out to 6-year-od girls and their dads. Happy reading! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribeBy Sean Johnson
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In today’s poem, a young Tennyson begins the long wrestling with grief. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribeBy Sean Johnson
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Today’s poem may or may not be based on actual events. Happy reading! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribeBy Sean Johnson
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In the latter years of his career and life, Donald Hall became something of an expert on growing old (his essay collections Essays After Eighty and A Carnival of Losses: Notes Nearing Ninety are a breathtaking dissertation on the subject), and in today’s poem we get a glimpse of his early apprenticeship in the art. Happy reading. This is a public e…
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In today’s poem, better is a dinner of herbs where love and memory are, than great riches. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribeBy Sean Johnson
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Today’s poem is channeling Anne Shirley in the autumn of her years. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribeBy Sean Johnson
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Today’s poem takes full advantage of the pantoum form’s naturally-contemplative structure–the repeating lines carrying us back and forth between past, present, and an undetermined future. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/sub…
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Jane Kenyon's "Three Songs at the End of Summer"
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3:40In today’s poem, Kenyon wrestles with the Solomonic thesis that “the end of a thing is better than its beginning.” Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribeBy Sean Johnson
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Noisy upstairs neighbors have been consternating mankind for as long as second-floors have existed. The all-too-familiar phenomenon has inspired novels, movies, Tom Waits songs, and even a poem or two–like today’s. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit da…
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Emily Dickinson's "How soft a Caterpillar steps —"
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3:57Philosopher Thomas Nagel famously argued that it is impossible to know what it’s like to be a bat. Dickinson, on the other hand, claims to know what caterpillars care (or don’t care) about. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/s…
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Today’s poem is the first half of Randall Jarrell’s reverie about his Los Angeles childhood–and one of the most effortless examples of terza rima in all of English poetry. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe…
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Rudyard Kipling’s “The Ballad of the Clampherdown”
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5:22Today’s poem is the satirical saga of an anachronistic naval battle. Heave ho and happy reading! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribeBy Sean Johnson
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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "The Fire of Drift-wood"
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5:46Nothing feels better and hurts worse than nostalgia. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribeBy Sean Johnson
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Today’s brief poem goes out to teachers everywhere as they return to work. Good luck and happy reading. “Poet Seamus Heaney described Holub’s writing as ‘a laying bare of things, not so much the skull beneath the skin, more the brain beneath the skull; the shape of relationships, politics, history; the rhythms of affections and disaffection; the eb…
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“To die, to sleep.” Sometimes the space between the two seems as slight as that intervening comma. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribeBy Sean Johnson
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William Shakespeare's "Sonnet 94: They that have power to hurt..."
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7:14I might say today’s poem is all subtext–if it weren’t for all the text. Ambiguous praise, sincere romantic angst, just the right amount of bitter wit: this sonnet has it all. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe…
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Live: William Carlos Williams' "The Fool's Song"
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15:42This special, live edition of The Daily Poem was recorded at the Close Reads 10th Anniversary celebration last weekend in Concord, NC. Happy reading! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe…
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Best known as the author of The Yearling and Cross Creek, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings enjoyed a long side-hustle as an occasional poet. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe…
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Today’s poem comes from Guite’s excellent collection, Sounding the Seasons (now in a new edition with over 100 sonnets!). Blessed feast and happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe…
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Hayes has said he longs for a language that can circumvent idea and communicate pure emotion—in today’s poem that quest is dramatized in a powerful way. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe…
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Happy tenth birthday to the Close Reads podcast, and happy reading! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribeBy Sean Johnson
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Today’s poem is one of “promises kept, and / promises / still to keep.” Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribeBy Sean Johnson
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Today’s poem looks forward to a long and prosperous “reign.” Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribeBy Sean Johnson
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This week’s poems are arranged around the themes of retrospection and anniversaries in honor of the Close Reads Podcast celebrating its tenth year. Today, we have Rhina Espaillat turning over rich soil. Happy reading! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.s…
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Carole Boston Weatherford's "Sidewalk Chalk"
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3:30Today’s poem is a little hopscotch down memory lane. Happy reading. Weatherford is author of over seventy books including fiction, non-fiction, and poetry inspired, she says, by “family stories, fading traditions, and forgotten struggles that center on African American resistance, resilience, remarkability, rejoicing and remembrance.” This is a pub…
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Today’s bittersweet poem glimpses the life of Arthur Rowanberry across time and beyond. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribeBy Sean Johnson
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Karina Borowicz was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts. She earned a BA in history and Russian from the University of Massachusetts and an MFA from the University of New Hampshire. Borowicz spent five years teaching English in Russia and Lithuania, and has translated poetry from Russian and French. Her first collection of poetry, The Bees Are Waiti…
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Robert Graves' "Epitaph on an Unfortunate Artist"
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2:59Today’s poem is a cautionary tale about achieving popular successes. Happy reading. “Mark Ford summarized Graves’s ‘wholesale rejection of 20th-century civilization and complete submission to the capricious demands of the Goddess’ with a quote from The White Goddess: ‘Since the age of 15 poetry has been my ruling passion and I have never intentiona…
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Today’s poem is an invitation to an encounter with the Real. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribeBy Sean Johnson
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Vachel Lindsay's "Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight"
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5:04Today’s poem is neither the first nor last to mythologize America’s sixteenth president. What is it about Lincoln that makes him so attractive to artists of every succeeding generation? Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subsc…
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Today’s poem–from British humorist Roger Woddis–is a witty-yet-withering sendup of double-morality. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribeBy Sean Johnson
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"Old English Riddle no. 26" (trans. Roy M. Liuzza)
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3:13Today’s poem comes from the largest surviving trove of Anglo Saxon poetry–the Exeter Book. Happy riddling! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribeBy Sean Johnson
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Louise Imogen Guiney's "John Brown: A Paradox"
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4:20Louise Imogen Guiney is known for her lyrical, Old English-style poems that often recall the literary conventions of seventeenth-century English poetry. Informed by her religious faith, Guiney's works reflect her concern with the Catholic tradition in literature and often emphasize moral rectitude and heroic gallantry. Today Guiney is praised for h…
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Happy 4th of July and happy reading! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribeBy Sean Johnson
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Juliana Horatia Ewing (August 3, 1841 – May 13, 1885) was an English writer of children's stories. Her writings display a sympathetic insight into children's lives, an admiration for things military, and a strong religious faith. Known as Julie, she was the second of ten children of the Rev. Alfred Gatty, Vicar of Ecclesfield in Yorkshire, and Marg…
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Today’s poem is one of those perfect distillations of a concrete emotion. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribeBy Sean Johnson
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Today’s poem is Chesterton’s ode to the silent majority. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribeBy Sean Johnson
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John Donne’s “A Valediction Forbidding Mourning”
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3:15Today’s poem marks a very special day. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribeBy Sean Johnson
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William Blake’s Introduction to Songs of Experience
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3:23Today’s poem, introducing the counterpart to “Songs of Innocence,” is a dialogue that immediately deepens the mood of the more “mature” lyrics that will follow. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe…
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Sweet is the home you leave. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribeBy Sean Johnson
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Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Frost at Midnight"
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5:30Today’s poem is a somber, paternal retrospective from the Ancient Mariner poet. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribeBy Sean Johnson
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Today’s poem kicks off a short trek through English poetry. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribeBy Sean Johnson
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My friend Simon Curtis, who has died aged 70, was one of the small band of people who work tirelessly, for no pay and few thanks, to promote poetry. An excellent poet himself, he edited two magazines and helped many struggling writers into print. His heroes were Wordsworth, Hardy and Causley. His own poetry, which rhymed and was perfectly accessibl…
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Today’s poem grows on you. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribeBy Sean Johnson
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David Wojahn grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota. He studied at the University of Minnesota and the University of Arizona. Ever since his first collection, Icehouse Lights, was chosen for the Yale Series of Younger Poets award in 1981, Wojahn has been one of American poetry’s most thoughtful examiners of culture and memory. His work often investigates h…
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A little light verse for anyone who wants to rise (far) above the noise for a moment. Happy reading. Bert Leston Taylor (November 13, 1866 – March 19, 1921) was an American columnist, humorist, poet, and author. Bert Leston Taylor became a journalist at seventeen, a librettist at twenty-one, and a successfully published author at thirty-five. At th…
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Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Conscientious Objector"
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3:30Death has been personified and analogized in myriad ways, but none perhaps so withering as today’s imagining of death as a fascist bureaucrat. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe…
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