Podcast appearances and mentions of edwin arlington robinson

by Edwin Arlington Robinson

Two thousand years ago, Confucius was as old to the people of China as Christopher Columbus is to us today. Five hundred and thirty-two years before the wise men followed their star to Bethlehem, Confucius wrote,“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by contemplation, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.”I agree with Confucius, but I believe it is the wisdom gained by bitter experience that runs the deepest in us. The boy who travels from village to village shouting “Wolf! Wolf!” learns things about wolves and villagers that no one else can know.I was once a wandering wolf-shouter.There is a red flashing light in my soul that keeps me from writing hard-hitting “sales activation” ads, not because it is foreign to me, but because I am extremely good at it.When I was a 20-year-old ad salesman, business owners would say to me, “Show me what you can do with a small amount of money, and if it works, we'll talk about a long-term commitment.”Being young, confident, and stupid, I wrote sales activation ads that could only be measured with a seismograph, and my career took off like a race car in a gravel parking lot. I'm told the gravel is still flying somewhere between Jupiter and Mars.I wore my tie draped around my neck like a scarf and I never tied my shoes. People said, “Your shoes are untied.”I smiled and said, “Yeah. I know.”That young fool was the diamond-ring Cadillac man. He was like Coca-Cola, baby, he was everywhere. When people called and ask if he delivered, he would say, “You want a crowd? Crowds cost money. How big a crowd do you want?”For 3 years he was the King of Making Big Things Happen Fast. He was going in circles faster than a NASCAR driver on a Saturday night and making more money than a heart surgeon. But he didn't like the person he had become.He was thinking about how much he hated working with anxious, impatient advertisers when it hit him: “Every one of those twitchy little bastards is a short-term results addict and I am their dealer.”I was writing the advertising equivalent of meth-laced, crack cocaine.In 1942, Edwin Arlington Robinson wrote,“The world is not a prison house, but a kind of kindergarten, where millions of bewildered infants are trying to spell God with the wrong blocks.”Realizing that I had been trying to spell success with the wrong blocks, I climbed out of the car I had been driving on the fast track to nowhere and saw what T.S. Eliot was trying to say when he wrote,“We shall not cease from explorationAnd the end of all our exploringWill be to arrive where we startedAnd know the place for the first time.”Finally standing with my feet on the ground, I looked with fresh eyes at what needed to be done, and knew the place for the first time.I saw Seven Truths that corresponded with The Seven Secrets of Sales Activation.These are the Seven Truths.You'll never see a bigger crowd than the first time you cry “Wolf!”Anything that delivers big results quickly will work less and less well the longer you keep doing it.You cannot build a strong and resilient company on gimmicks and empty promises.Anything that works better and better the longer you keep doing it will deliver disappointing results at first.It takes awhile to make people feel like they really know you.This is why winning the hearts of customers requires months of meaningful courtship.The average business owner does not have the faith and patience to build an attractive brand.(This is particularly true of business owners who trust metrics more than they trust their own...

Tess and Brock try to get on the same wavelength as Edwin Arlington Robinson, also known as EAR, by visiting his birthplace in Gardiner, ME. To get inside the head of the poet they talk with Richard Russo. Russo and EAR share more similarities than their status as Pulitzer prize winning Maine authors—both of their work focuses on growing up in small towns with big dreams.Today, EAR may not be the biggest name, but his work remains timeless in its ability to connect to the inner misfit in all of us.Mentioned:“The House on the Hill” by Edwin Arlington Robinson“Miniver Cheevy” by Edwin Arlington Robinson“Children of the Night” by Edwin Arlington RobinsonStraight Man by Richard RussoElsewhere by Richard RussoSomebody's Fool by Richard RussoBreaking Bad (2008)Better Call Saul (2015)Colby College Special Robinson CollectionThe house:The E.A. Robinson HouseTess Chakkalakal is the creator, executive producer and host of Dead Writers. Brock Clarke is our writer and co-host.Lisa Bartfai is the managing producer and executive editor. Our music is composed by Cedric Wilson, who also mixes the show. Ella Jones is our web editorial intern, and Mark Hoffman created our logo. A special thanks to our reader Merrick Meardon.This episode was produced with the generous support of our sponsors Bath Savings and listeners like you.

For The Atlantic, Eliot A. Cohen has written a piece called “Farewell to Academe.” The subtitle is: “I leave with doubts and foreboding that I would not have anticipated when I completed my formal education in 1982.” With Jay, he talks about this. They also talk about Israel and Ukraine. About U.S. politics. About the life of the mind, including poetry (Dylan Thomas, Edwin Arlington Robinson). A wide-ranging, personal, and informative conversation. 

Recorded by Academy of American Poets staff for Poem-a-Day, a series produced by the Academy of American Poets. Published on July 6, 2024. www.poets.org

Send us a Text Message.This is the third of a multi-episode series in which I chat with Dr. Larissa ‘Kat' Tracey about literary representations of medieval adultery and its reality. In this episode Kat and I survey and discuss the major nineteenth- and twentieth-century literary treatments of medieval adultery, focusing on the stories of La(u)ncelot and Guinevere and of Tristan/Tristram and Isolde/Isolt/Iseult  The episode begins with an opera, Richard Wagner's extremely influential retelling of the tale, Tristan und Isolde. Although composed between 1857 and 1859, the opera did not premiere until 1865, because it was deemed too expensive to stage and its complex, innovative music was thought to be unperformable. We consider how Wagner reconceived his medieval source, Gottfried of Strassburg's thirteenth-century romance, through the lens of Schopenhauer's life-denying philosophy, and how in its composition art imitated life, as Wagner engaged in what was the very least an emotional affair with his wealthy Swiss patron's wife.  Kat and I then discuss the very different treatments of these Arthurian stories about adultery by three leading Victorian poets and one early twentieth-century American: the poet Laureate Alfred Lord Tennyson, the decadent aesthete Algernon Swinburne, the Pre-Raphaelite artist and author William Morris, and the popular American poet Edwin Arlington Robinson, whose now all-but-forgotten best-selling poem Tristram won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928. We then turn to how twentieth-century novelists have handled the moral issues arising from medieval adultery in their renditions of the Arthurian legend. The episode concludes with an analysis of adultery in a non-Arthurian medieval novel, Sigrid Undset's historical trilogy about fourteenth-century Norway, Kristin Lavransdatter (1920-1923), which earned the author the Noble Prize for Literature in 1928, the same year that Robinson's very different Tristram won the Pulitzer. Kat and I began this episode with the intention of covering both modern literature and movies dealing with medieval adultery. But it became clear as we were recording that a single episode would be very long. So we decided to talk about medieval adultery on film in a final, fourth episode, which I will be releasing in about a week's time. And that will be it for medieval adultery, although I plan to have Kat return in future to talk about a subject on which she has written extensively, torture and cruelty in medieval literature. As I have jokingly told her, she is my go to person for medieval perversities.  This episode contains two musical snippets:Wagner's “Prelude to the Liebestod [Love Death]” from his opera Tristan und Isolde, conducted by Arturo Toscanini (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBFcDGTzgAI) “If Ever I Would Leave You” from the musical Camelot, lyrics and music by Lerner and Loewe and sung by Robert Goulet as Lancelot (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xL52hEArSfM) In my discussion of the literary texts, I drew upon the researches of several scholars, among them:John Deathridge, Wagner Beyond Good and Evil, University of California Press,  2008R.J.A. Kilbourn, “Redemption Revalued in Tristan und Isolde: Schopenhauer, Wagner, Nietzsche,” in University of Toronto Quarterly, Volume 67, Number 4, Fall 1998, pp. 781-788“Tristan und Isolde,” Wikipedia (yes, I do consult Wikipedia)“Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com Intro and exit music are by Alexander NakaradaIf you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com

Edwin Arlington Robinson was born in Head Tide, Maine on December 22, 1869 (the same year as W. B. Yeats). His family moved to Gardiner, Maine, in 1870, which renamed “Tilbury Town,” became the backdrop for many of Robinson's poems. Robinson described his childhood as stark and unhappy; he once wrote in a letter to Amy Lowell that he remembered wondering why he had been born at the age of six. After high school, Robinson spent two years studying at Harvard University as a special student and his first poems were published in the Harvard Advocate.Robinson privately printed and released his first volume of poetry, The Torrent and the Night Before, in 1896 at his own expense; this collection was extensively revised and published in 1897 as The Children of the Night. Unable to make a living by writing, he got a job as an inspector for the New York City subway system. In 1902, he published Captain Craig and Other Poems. This work received little attention until President Theodore Roosevelt wrote a magazine article praising it and Robinson. Roosevelt also offered Robinson a sinecure in a U.S. Customs House, a job he held from 1905 to 1910. Robinson dedicated his next work, The Town Down the River (1910), to Roosevelt.Robinson's first major success was The Man Against the Sky (1916). He also composed a trilogy based on Arthurian legends: Merlin (1917), Lancelot (1920), and Tristram (1927), which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1928. Robinson was also awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his Collected Poems (1921) in 1922 and The Man Who Died Twice (1924) in 1925. For the last twenty-five years of his life, Robinson spent his summers at the MacDowell Colony of artists and musicians in Peterborough, New Hampshire. Robinson never married and led a notoriously solitary lifestyle. He died in New York City on April 6, 1935.-bio via Academy of American Poets Get full access to The Daily Poem Podcast at dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

Today's poem is one of the most recognizable and influential American poems of the twentieth century.Langston Hughes was a central figure in the Harlem Renaissance, the flowering of black intellectual, literary, and artistic life that took place in the 1920s in a number of American cities, particularly Harlem. A major poet, Hughes also wrote novels, short stories, essays, and plays. He sought to honestly portray the joys and hardships of working-class black lives, avoiding both sentimental idealization and negative stereotypes.Hughes's position in the American literary scene seems to be secure. David Littlejohn wrote that Hughes is "the one sure Negro classic, more certain of permanence than even Baldwin or Ellison or Wright. … His voice is as sure, his manner as original, his position as secure as, say Edwin Arlington Robinson's or Robinson Jeffers'. … By molding his verse always on the sounds of Negro talk, the rhythms of Negro music, by retaining his own keen honesty and directness, his poetic sense and ironic intelligence, he maintained through four decades a readable newness distinctly his own."Hughes's poems have been translated into German, French, Spanish, Russian, Yiddish, and Czech; many of them have been set to music.-bio via Poetry Foundation Get full access to The Daily Poem Podcast at dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

SCRIPTURE Daniel 5:1-31 2 Peter 2:1-22 Psalm 119:113-128 Proverbs 28:19-20 AFFIRMATION: I honor the fullness of this moment rather than dwelling in what was or could be. APHORISM: There are two kinds of gratitude: the sudden kind we feel for what we take; the larger kind we feel for what we give. ~Edwin Arlington Robinson ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Verses 'n' Flow | Donate⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Music by Tim D. Clinton --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jenniferwainwright/message

The life of man who was once America's most famous poet, and of his work. (This article was first published October 17, 2017.) The written, original version of this article can be found here, or at https://theworthyhouse.com/2018/12/29/book-review-trotsky-a-biography-robert-service/ We strongly encourage, in these days of censorship and deplatforming, all readers to bookmark our main site (https://www.theworthyhouse.com). You can also subscribe for email notifications. The Worthy House does not solicit donations or other support, or have ads. Other than at the main site, you can follow Charles here: https://twitter.com/TheWorthyHouse https://gab.com/TheWorthyHouse

Welcome to the Instant Trivia podcast episode 598, where we ask the best trivia on the Internet. Round 1. Category: America's Most Want Ads 1: Wanted: Mass quantities of this hardest natural substance on Earth. diamonds. 2: Wanted: Any one of the remaining ones of this vintage toy in its original box from 1959. Barbie. 3: Wanted: Any living specimens of the Schaus Swallowtail, one of the rarest species of this insect. the butterfly. 4: Wanted: Street maps of this lost continent first described by a priest to the philosopher Solon. Atlantis. 5: Wanted: Recent photos of this reclusive author and creator of Holden Caulfield. J.D. Salinger. Round 2. Category: Mythological Relatives 1: Some say Penelope played around with Hermes and produced this god known for playing the pipes. Pan. 2: Eris, the personification of discord, accompanies this Greek war god, her brother, into battle. Ares. 3: This king of Crete was Phaedra's father. Minos. 4: The Graeae, or "gray women", are gray-haired sisters of this gruesome group that includes Medusa. Gorgons. 5: Typhon, who had a hundred heads, was the father of this multi-headed serpent. the Hydra. Round 3. Category: Candles 1: Elton John's "Candle In The Wind" was originally written as a tribute to this actress. Marilyn Monroe. 2: Blowing out his birthday candles, a boy wishes for 24 hours of truth from his dad in this 1997 Jim Carrey film. Liar Liar. 3: Erle Stanley Gardner had this attorney take on "The Case Of The Crooked Candle". Perry Mason. 4: In the mid-19th century, candles were often made with this wax crystallized from petroleum. Paraffin wax. 5: This play contains the line "Out, out brief candle!". Macbeth. Round 4. Category: 20Th Century Poetry 1: Frank O'Hara's "The Day Lady Died" is a tribute to this black singer. Billie Holiday. 2: In Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken", it's the color of the wood two roads diverged in. yellow. 3: It's the first name of Edwin Arlington Robinson's morose Mr. Cheevy. Miniver. 4: "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness", he "howled". Allen Ginsberg. 5: He went from laboring in a Siberian camp to becoming a US citizen to winning the 1987 Nobel Literature Prize. Josef Brodsky. Round 5. Category: It's All A Plant 1: Arkansas has made the pink variety of this its state fruit and its state vegetable, just in case. a tomato. 2: Scientifically Hamamelis virginiana, this "bewitching" plant is used to make a soothing astringent. witch hazel. 3: In Dutch, these tuber vegetables are known as aardappelen. potatoes. 4: Arctic alpine plants include the saxifrage, whose roots manage to grow into these to anchor themselves. rocks. 5: The Great Basin bristlecone species of this tree can live for more than 4,000 years. a pine. Thanks for listening! Come back tomorrow for more exciting trivia! Special thanks to https://blog.feedspot.com/trivia_podcasts/

Recorded by Academy of American Poets staff for Poem-a-Day, a series produced by the Academy of American Poets. Published on July 24, 2022. www.poets.org

Welcome to the Instant Trivia podcast episode 448, where we ask the best trivia on the Internet. Round 1. Category: Army, Navy Or Marines 1: Chester Nimitz. the Navy. 2: World War I flying ace Frank Luke. the Army. 3: John Glenn. the Marines. 4: Roger Staubach. the Navy. 5: Comedian Drew Carey. the Marines. Round 2. Category: 20Th Century Poetry 1: Frank O' Hara's "The Day Lady Died" is a tribute to this black singer. Billie Holiday. 2: In Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken", it's the color of the wood two roads diverged in. yellow. 3: It's the first name of Edwin Arlington Robinson's morose Mr. Cheevy. Miniver. 4: "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness", he "howled". Allen Ginsberg. 5: He went from laboring in a Siberian camp to becoming a US citizen to winning the 1987 Nobel Literature Prize. Josef Brodsky. Round 3. Category: They're History! 1: This "Scourge of God" was a real Hun-y; he had his brother Bleda killed in 445. Attila. 2: Having lost about half his troops whil crossing the Alps, he recruited about 15,000 Gauls. Hannibal. 3: Known for his long wall, he also built Rome's magnificent Athenaeum. Hadrian. 4: During his long reign, this Egyptian king built temples at many sites, including Abu Simbel. Ramses II (or Ramses the Great). 5: A little birdie "ptold" me: after Alexander the Great's death, this general took control of Egypt. Ptolemy. Round 4. Category: Paying Tribute 1: War ensued when in 1801 this Barbary state, now part of Libya, tried to jack up the tribute the U.S. was paying. Tripoli. 2: In 434 this group led by Attila doubled the tribute they demanded from Roman Emperor Theodosius II. the Huns. 3: In 1004 the Chinese Song emperor pledged to pay the Khitan people 100,000 yearly oz. of silver and 200,000 bolts of this. silk. 4: Before repelling these invaders in 896, Alfred the Great of England tried to buy them off. the Vikings (or the Danes). 5: In the 790s this Frankish king forced the Slavs and Avars to pay him tribute. Charlemagne. Round 5. Category: Diamonds Are Forever 1: If you were born in this month, the diamond is your traditional birthstone -- no foolin'. April. 2: One of the plane surfaces of a cut diamond; the brilliant cut has 58. Facet. 3: Sanguinary term for a diamond sold to finance military operations. a blood diamond. 4: A 41.94 carat diamond is named for this emperor; we assume his wife Carlotta was mad about it. Maximilian. 5: The slogan "A diamond is forever" was coined in 1947 by an ad exec for this South African commercial giant. De Beers. Thanks for listening! Come back tomorrow for more exciting trivia!

Edwin Arlington Robinson (December 22, 1869 – April 6, 1935) was an American poet. Robinson won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry on three occasions and was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times.[2]Bio via Wikipedia See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Matthew McConaughey writes in his book, Green Lights,“Cool is a natural law. If it was cool for THAT time, then it is cool for ALL time. A fad is just a branch on Cool's trunk; a fashionable fling whose 15 minutes can never abide, no matter how long she trends to try. Cool stands the test of time, because cool never tries. Cool just is.” My friend Crazy Tony taught me about “cool” 45 years ago when we attended Broken Arrow High School together. Tony made a lot of money buying and selling old cars. I was known as Beatermaker because Tony was forever frustrated by my uncanny ability to drive a fabulous car and, within a week, make it look like a beater. “Beatermaker,” he said, “every guy who has found an old car in perfect condition believes he has found a gold mine. But it's almost never true. If a car wasn't highly desirable when it was new, no one wants it 20, 30, or 50 years later. But if a car was admired and desired on the day it was born, it will be cool forever, no matter what condition it's in.” That was the insight that made Crazy Tony tens of thousands of dollars when we were in high school. The passage of time, the recklessness of the human race, and the slow smokeless burning of decay make old things rare. But it it does not make them wonderful. Remarkable buildings and books and paintings and songs don't get better with age. They were wonderful the day they were born. I know it, Matthew McConaughey knows it, and now you know it. But what makes them wonderful?Wonderful things were touched by someone who knew the secret of wonder and how to capture it. When you know how to capture wonder, you carry it in your head, your heart, and your hands. You glitter when you walk. Isaac Newton knew how to capture wonder and he passed the secret of it forward in just 14 words. Countless millions have read those words and assumed Newton was talking about himself. He was not. Newton was giving you his most precious advice. He was telling you how to capture wonder. He was telling you how to glitter when you walk. In 1675, Newton wrote, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.” Isaac Newton stood on the shoulders of Galileo, Kepler, and Copernicus in astronomy, Huygens, Euclid, Henry Briggs, and Isaac Barrow in math, Kepler and Descartes in optics, and Plato, Aristotle, and Maimonides in philosophy. Newton combined the insights of all these men and made them uniquely his own. Choose your giants. Stand on their shoulders. Repurpose the proven.Vincent Van Gogh stood on the shoulders of Monticelli and Hiroshige. Long after they were dead, they taught him how to paint. He studied their paintings, captured their wonder, and made it uniquely his own. Johnny Depp stood on the shoulders of Pepe Le Pew, the cartoon skunk, and Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones. They taught him how to become Captain Jack Sparrow. Depp studied their mannerisms, captured their wonder, and made it uniquely his own. I stand on the shoulders of John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, Robert Frost, Asimov, Tolkien, Paul Harvey, and Edwin Arlington Robinson. They taught me how to write. In fact, I borrowed “the slow smokeless burning of decay” from Robert Frost and “glitter when you walk” from Robinson. They don't mind. Each of them stood on the shoulders of giants of their own choosing. Do you have time for me to give you one more example?In the rabbit hole you'll find “Summer Wine,” a hit song written by Lee Hazlewood that made the Billboard Hot 100 in 1967. When you listen to it, you will think it sounds like a movie score. This is because Hazlewood took three famous movie themes that don't belong together and made them fit. He captured their wonder and made it uniquely his own. Yes, cognoscenti, you understand. The 3 giants on whose shoulders Hazlewood was standing are obvious. First, you have Nancy Sinatra sounding like every Disney Princess in every Disney movie ever made. And then you...

In the first of this three-part series covering Tales to Give You Goosebumps #1, Andy and Alyssa read "The House of No Return," "Teacher's Pet," and "Strained Peas." In their discussion of "The House of No Return," they talk about the first person plural, Jeffrey Eugenides's "The Virgin Suicides" (1993), Edwin Arlington Robinson's "The House on the Hill" (1869), the pathetic fallacy, Halloween costume choices, Shirley Jackson and small town horror, Freddy Krueger, wiliness, Hocus Pocus (1993), fairy tales, tradesies, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, things ostensibly for your own good, the Saw and Purge franchises, Alice Miller's "For Your Own Good" (1980), old possessive ghosts, the "How the Ghosts Stole Christmas" episode of The X-Files (1998), La Llorona, trauma bonding and cults, spend-the-night dares, The House on Haunted Hill (1959 and 1999), Cassandra Khaw's "Nothing But Blackened Teeth" (2021), Stephen King's 1408 (story 1999, film 2007), Nash and Zullo's "Totally Haunted Kids" (1994), and H.G. Wells's "The Red Room" (1894). With "Teacher's Pet," they discuss dumb gender lessons, rhinestones, snake education vs Andy's education, fears about eco-terrorism, the "Darkness Falls" and "Die Hand die verletzt" episodes of The X-Files (1994 and 95), Lawrence Pazder and Michelle Smith's "Michelle Remembers" (1980), animal liberation gone wrong, 28 Days Later (2002), 12 Monkeys (1995), Dracula's Renfield, The Omen (1976), ssssssssnakessssssss, Anaconda (1997) and other snake movies, snake people, Medusa, seitan, research and me-search, the "Shy Girl" episode of Masters of Horror (2006), The Fly (1986), Swamp Thing (1982), unresolved endings, Black Christmas (1974), The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016), Oculus (2013), and why R.L. Stine likes to leave us with a final scare. And in "Strained Peas," they talk about Dr. Destro, conflating morals and feelings, racial coding, scary babies, We Need to Talk About Kevin (novel 2003, film 2011), The Exorcist (novel 1971, film 1973), Who Can Kill a Child? (1976), The Brood (1979), Octavia Butler's "Bloodchild" (1985), The Baby (1973), being replaced by a new child, Addams Family Values (1993), The Good Son (1993), The Orphan (2009), sibling rivalry, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), Dead Ringers (1988), Psycho Yoga Instructor (2020), stalkers in your home, The Grudge (2004), secret baby switches, The Changeling (1980), and Big Business (1988). They wrap up talking about short story collections, Edenic parables, and the diamondback rattler. // Music by Haunted Corpse // Follow @saypodanddie on Twitter and Instagram, and get in touch at saypodanddie@gmail.com

Read by Harriet BooksProduction and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

Read by Dave LuukkonenProduction and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

Our hosts, but mostly Maq, discuss the art of poetry, the general terribleness of Ezra Pound, and the fact that Poetry is Good, Actually.Maq chose a lot of poems for today's episode; below are some links from her show notes, including some poems we didn't get around to discussing but are worth reading nonetheless.Reading List:Canto 2 from “Hang it all, Robert Browning” to the Greek. 11 lines only, that's all we need to hate him. Found here: https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/poetry/canto-ii-pound/poem-text and here.From 2001, Alan Dugan's Love Song: I & ThouFrom 1989, Haizi's Looking out to sea, warmed by the spring airFrom 2010, Traci Brimhall's Concerning Cuttlefish and UgolinoLet's do a sonnet! From 1997, William Meredith's The IlliterateRania Kapoor's (2016) The Introvert's BanterEdwin Arlington Robinson's (1914) Eros Turranos Why I Haven't Told You Yet by Emi MahmoudA Rabbit as King of the Ghosts (1954)  by Wallace StevensI Go Out on a Road Alone by Mikhail LermentovLove One Another by Khalil GibranExeter Book Poem/Riddle 44  (approx  975)The Hallmark Poem  aka Easter Wings by George Herbert (only to complain about how shitty people existed even in the 17th century)Neil Hilborn's OCDJohn Donne's The Flea, The Canonization, The Ecstasy, Satire III Find bonus content and general shitposting on our Patreon See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Andy and Alyssa read Goosebumps #30: It Came from Beneath the Sink! They discuss Sappho, yonic imagery and period metaphors, sponges (of course), water parks and log flumes, library visits in horror, Gremlins (1984), the ticking clock trope, Leprechaun (1993), mortgages for children, predictions for the future of dystopic capitalism, repression, Stephen King's IT (1986) and Pet Sematary (1983), rage issues, theories of power and control, The Babadook (2014), I Am Not a Serial Killer (2016), childbirth horror, Eraserhead (1977), Stephanie (2017), Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation (2014), The Thing (1982), the legend of Sawney Bean, Samanta Schweblin's Fever Dream (2014), ecohorror, witch stories, familiars, homeowner horror and repression mansions, Edwin Arlington Robinson's "The House on the Hill," and whether Kat's a psychopath or just PMSing. // Music by Haunted Corpse // Follow @saypodanddie on Twitter and Instagram, and get in touch at saypodanddie@gmail.com

Poems for this episode:"Sonnet 60: Like as the waves make towards the pebbl'd shore" by William Shakespeare"The House on the Hill" by Edwin Arlington Robinson"Song: Memory, hither come" by William Blake"I Love all Beauteous Things" by Robert BridgesTo submit your work to be heard on a future episode send it to: james@deertrackspodcast.blog

The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It’s the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared. from The Giver by Lois Lowry Poems for this episode: “Sonnet 60: Like as the waves make towards the pebbl’d shore” by William Shakespeare“The House on the Hill” by Edwin Arlington Robinson“Song: Memory, hither…Read more Back and Back and Back

In this podcast, I go through the profound, searching imagery in Edwin Arlington Robinson's poem, "The Man Against the Sky." This poems follows a man embarking alone on to a hill where he stands against a terrible conflagration. It is a symbol of an individual on a spiritual quest, facing the fundamental reality of change in the universe and the possibility that immortality is only an empty wish. This poem is an existentialist poem insofar as it explores the separation of the individual from the community and the related withering of significance of the ideologies that bind that community together. The poem can be found here: https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-man-against-the-sky/. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Amanda Holmes reads Edwin Arlington Robinson’s poem, “Eros Turannos.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you’ll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman.This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Mr. Flood's Party by Edwin Arlington Robinson

This poet was almost a gutter drunk until a U.S. president stepped in.

Today's poem is by Edwin Arlington Robinson's "Miniver Cheevy." Remember: subscribe, rate, review! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

A Poem a Day Keeps the Darkness at Bay - each day I read a poem, and give a brief amount of information on the poet. This is episode 02 on Edwin Arlington Robinson

Rich people need love too. It's routine today to belittle "white people problems," but problems are experienced as an individual not global phenomena. Every single human being is important, no matter their color or upbringing. In this poem, my friend and Founder of Deep Drilling Insights, Donovan Schafer converse with this verse by Robinson, and bring up topics such as suicide, white privilege, and the tide of history.

Rich people need love too. It's routine today to belittle "white people problems," but problems are experienced as an individual not global phenomena. Every single human being is important, no matter their color or upbringing. In this poem, my friend and Founder of Deep Drilling Insights, Donovan Schafer converse with this verse by Robinson, and bring up topics such as suicide, white privilege, and the tide of history.

Watch a man glitter while he walks in Edwin Arlington Robinson's "Richard Cory." *** All the sounds present behind the poem come from Freesound.org.  Users reasanka, cabled_mess,burning-mir, and edtijo are those whose work is included here.  All tracks are being used under CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication Licenses.  I do want to take another moment and let anyone listening that is having dark thoughts in the vein of this poem that they should reach out to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255, or, if a phone call isn't right for you, chat live online with a counselor at suicidepreventionlifeline.org. Again, please reach out and don't suffer in silence.

Hello and welcome to episode thirty-seven of Prose.   This week, consider the divinity of that girl you love and remember that smiles do not equivocate happiness.   In case you missed the memo last week, instead of taking two weeks off for my summer course at Oxford, I have elected to have some shorter offerings here on Prose.  So, for episodes thirty-six and thirty-seven, this has, indeed, been the case.  Additionally, these episodes are coming to you having been preprogrammed, so I pray that all is well with them upon delivery.  I also hope that you will all forgive me for not rushing the next edition of “Sonbol” out to you.  I don't want to mar the story, hence the slow going.  Short of some oddities springing up while I'm overseas, the show should be back with at least another short episode and/or update for episode thirty-eight.  Again, my deepest thanks for your patience. As per always, I toss out the entreaty for all of you to follow along on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, as this can help the podcast get noticed.  Even more importantly, please go to iTunes and leave a rating and/or review for Prose.  Ratings and reviews set this show up for continuing into the future.  If you'd like an easy way to have access to all this, head over to prosepodcast.com.    Let's get to the short but potent poems we're featuring this week, shall we?   This week, we have “To Be Divine” and “Richard Cory” by Edwin Arlington Robinson.   Enjoy!

1. Use Words that have Specific Meanings.“The bug moved along the ground, deciding which way it should go.” “The ant crawled between the blades of grass, peeking left and right at every intersection.” Bug is nonspecific. Ant is specific. “…moved along the ground” is mildly specific, but not vivid. “…crawled between the blades of grass” is specific and vivid. 2. Don't Tell. Show.“…deciding which way it should go,” tells you what the ant was doing. “…peeking left and right at every intersection,” shows you the ant and leads you to conclude that the ant is deciding which way to go. You are, for a moment, seeing through the eyes of the ant. Giving human motives to inanimate objects is a powerful tool known as personification. “Your Rolex is waiting patiently for you to come and pick it up at Shreve and Company.” 3. Write Tight and Clean.Short Sentences Hit Harder than Long Ones.Adjectives and adverbs don't accelerate communication. They slow it down. Use them with restraint. What I'm doing now is giving you an example of a long sentence, (in essence, the kind of sentence often written by persons who are trying to sound educated, although in truth, sentences like this one just make you sound full of yourself,) for the purpose of demonstrating that complex sentences full of commas and parenthetic statements and verbose, multi-word, adjective-stacked descriptions have a much diminished impact and are not nearly so pleasant to read as short, clear statements like the 6-word sentence and the two 4-word sentences that preceded this horrific construction of 135 pompous, tedious and wearisome words that keep going on and on for so very long that by the time you get to the final point, you have forgotten several of the previous ones that were made. 4. Let the Subject of the Sentence Take the Action.Passive Voice is a Bad Choice.You speak in passive voice when the subject of the sentence is acted upon: “Wizard Academy is attended by interesting people.” You speak in active voice when the subject of the sentence takes the action: “Interesting people attend Wizard Academy.” Passive voice is noncommittal: “It got lost.” Active voice is confident and clear. “I lost it.” 5. Feed Your Pen Surprising Combinations of Interesting WordsIf you inform without persuading, you are hearing a newscast when you write. The goal of the journalist is to inform, not to persuade. If you entertain without persuading, you are hearing creative writing as you write. The goal of the creative writer is to entertain, not to persuade. The poet leads you to think and feel differently. The goal of the poet is to persuade. And the best ones do it in a brief, tight economy of words. I'm not talking about rhyming. I beg you not to rhyme. I'm talking about using surprising combinations of vivid words to trigger assumptions and conclusions in the minds of those who hear you. Edwin Arlington Robinson wrote Richard Cory in 1897. This was when “clean favored” meant good-looking, and how you were dressed is how you were “arrayed.” Richard CoryWhenever Richard Cory went down town, We people on the pavement looked at him: He was a gentleman from sole to crown, Clean favored, and imperially slim. And he was always quietly arrayed, And he was always human when he talked; But still he fluttered pulses when he said, “Good-morning,” and he glittered when he walked. And he was rich—yes, richer than a king— And admirably schooled in every grace: In short, we thought that he was everything To make us wish that we were in his place. So on we worked, and waited for the light, And went without the meat, and cursed the bread; And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, Went home and put a bullet through his head. Compare the images contained in that 124-word poem to those in the 135-word example in Point 3. – RHW 6. If you would become a better communicator…if you would write better...

Welcome to the world of Shadowvane, a place where the horrific and frightening reside. We are a podcast in the same vein as the classic radio dramas of the ‘30s and ‘40s. We hope to offer an experience similar to the classic War of the Worlds or modern storytelling examples in podcasts like Welcome to Night Vale, Sayer, or We're Alive.As promised, here's part 2 of our collection of death-themed poetry. We have some classics mixed in with some sad war poetry this time around. Enjoy the readings of "I Have a Rendezvous with Death" by Alan Seger, "Ozymandias" by Percy Shelley, "Dulce Et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Owen, "Luke Havergal" by Edwin Arlington Robinson, and "Alone" by Edgar Allan Poe.We will release new episodes twice a month on the 1st and 15th. If you like our show, consider leaving us a 5 star rating and review on iTunes. Also, check out our Patreon and donate to our show and receive some great rewards in return!Please let us know your thoughts! E-mail us at Shadowvanecast@gmail.com, like us on Facebook at facebook.com/shadowvanecast, or follow us on Twitter @Shadowvanecast.Also, check out our online store and pick up some cool Shadowvane merchandise!

There is an expression, "You can't take it with you." This sentiment is clearly expressed in Psalm 49. Not only can one not take their wealth with them, but it won't save them from the grave (verses 6-9) and it can't redeem another. God gives us truths throughout the Bible. Truths . . . answers . . . that are waiting to be found if we only look for them. If we are seeking after God through his word. This particular Psalm was one that sparked Martin Luther's 95 Theses and was a clear refutation of the selling of indulgences, for as verse 15 clearly states, it is God alone who can redeem a soul from the power of Sheol. This Psalm also brought to mind the poem, "Richard Cory," by Edwin Arlington Robinson.

Here's a quick question that will make you wonder: which son of Maine has affected more lives upon the planet than any other? Seems like a silly idea, really, perhaps because there is no real way to answer such a subjective question. In the arts we have Stephen King, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Edwin Arlington Robinson. In sports we have Louis Sockalexis, Cindy Blodgett, and Joan Benoit. Our political influence includes Lincoln's first vice-president, Hannibal Hamlin, the hero of Little Round Top, Joshua Chamberlain, and Margaret Chase Smith. For inventors, though, I believe there is a clear choice. Yes, Milton Bradley was born in Vienna, Maine. He invented games we still play and was the first person to print kindergarten materials in the country. Yes, we have Chester Greenwood, our beloved inventor of the earmuff. We even have Alvin Lombard, who invented the rolling track we see on snowmobiles and tanks. Of course, we can't forget L.L. Bean, the fellow who finally invented a waterproof boot. But to say that any of these inventors' creations changed the world for the majority of humans on the planet might be forcing the issue. There is one man, however, whose life changed the world for almost everyone. His contribution impacted peoples' lives so intensely, so devastatingly, that many will never be able to forget, or even to forgive him. His name is Hiram Maxim. During his time on earth he was responsible for 221 patents. Named a knight by by Queen Victoria and knighted by King Edward, he was known to royalty and world leaders. H.G. Wells was a great personal friend. He knew and spent time with the Wright Brothers. His patents include curling irons, amusement park rides, steam pumps, light bulbs and flying machines - all fairly important and mostly benign inventions, making the world a better place. So what on earth could this inventor from Sangerville, Maine have created that links him so inextricably with human suffering and bloody death? The same invention that links him inextricably with national defense and sovereignty. Hiram Maxim is the inventor of the first portable, fully automatic, self-loading and self-firing machine gun. How a poor boy from the wilds of Maine could have invented such a device and how he rose to such prominence is a fascinating tale, a true Horatio Alger story. Born in a humble shack by the side of the road near a brook at Brockway's Mills, Maine,  Hiram began life as the son of a poor farmer and found as he grew that he was good at working with his hands, tinkering and making things work. Born in 1840, he and his brother Hudson lived in the wilds of the northern woods and found that hunting, fishing and farming were his main interests as he grew. There wasn't much else to do. He was adept with his hands and the use of tools. One day, he and his brother stood on a boulder on the edge of the family farm in Sangerville and each vowed that one day, they would be successful and wealthy men, a vow that ultimately saw fruition. At fourteen, he apprenticed out to a carriage-maker in East Corinth and was a handy hand at small boat-building. He invented a new mousetrap that kept the grist mill in Abbott free from vermin. But was too humble and quiet a place for his roaming mind and he left it to move to Fitchburg, Massachusetts to work at his uncle's machine works. During his time in there, he found work as a draftsman and an instrument maker and it seemed that nothing he put his mind to eluded him. He disliked working with others and found solace only in situations where he was ultimately in charge. When the Civil War broke out, Hiram refused to enlist. He would not become involved in that conflagration for moral reasons. He did not believe in war as a way to solve humanity's problems.  How strange that in years to come,  in the war to end all wars, his contribution would lead to more casualties than any other human on the planet. His brother Hudson Maxim was a skilled inventor in his own right, but his specialty was explosives and he put his considerable talent to the task of solving one of the most perplexing problems of modern war. At the time, gunpowder produced a cloud of impenetrable white on the battlefield and very soon after the firing commenced, confusion ensued. Soldiers could barely see the person next to them, let alone the enemy a hundred yards away. The gunpowder also left heavy residue that could gum up the workings of the mechanism. The government was eager to find a replacement for the old recipe for gunpowder, one that would give them the advantage on any battlefield. Hudson delivered and we do not know how much he was assisted by his brother Hiram, but there was a major falling out between them over the patent. Hudson had the greater knowledge when it came to chemicals and ordinance, but when the patent was applied for from the patent office, the applicant only wrote the name "H. Maxim" was on the form. Hiram claimed smokeless powder for his own. Hudson disagreed, claiming that he was the rightful inventor. Though we may never know which of the brothers created smokeless powder, it was enough to split the two men apart for the rest of their lives. Shortly after this, Hiram Maxim left the shores of America to work for the US Electric Lighting Company in London. He found life in Britain very much to his liking and he would eventually give up his United States citizenship to become a naturalized British citizen. His fortunes grew, as did his creativity. He created the world's first automatic sprinkler system that not only put out the fire but notified the local firehouse, though there was little commercial interest in the invention. Riveting machines, inventions that prevented the rolling of ships at sea, and pine-menthol inhalers to assist those with asthma were all ideas he brought to the world. He dabbled and tinkered and was generally successful, but he was still restless and nowhere near as wealthy as he would like. But then, in 1882, he met another ex-patriot while visiting Vienna, Austria who gave him a piece of advice that would change the world. He said to Hiram, "Hang your chemistry and electricity! If you want to make a pile of money, invent something that will enable these Europeans to cut each others' throats with greater facility." It was the seed that grew into a nightmare. Maxim lived in a rather palatial country house in West Norwood. It was there that he threw his mind to the task of creating an efficient killing machine, one that would make him fabulously wealthy. The Gatling Gun, invented for the Union Army during the American Civil War by Richard Gatling, was the world's best known rapid-fire weapon. It's cyclical nature meant that the barrels did not overheat as long as it was not fired any higher than a certain rate. Perhaps its most problematic issue was that it was extremely heavy and once in place, it tended to stay there for the duration of the battle. Something lighter and faster was in Maxim's mind. Hiram Maxim had spent his youth hunting bears in the Maine woods and he recalled the kickback that the large caliber rifles gave his young shoulder whenever he fired. His genius lay in the idea that the force of the kickback, if properly harnessed, might be used to load the next bullet. It might even be used to have the gun actually fire itself, in effect, pulling its own trigger. The new smokeless powder that he may or may not have had a hand inventing meant almost no gumming up of the mechanism and with the later addition of a water jacket to act a radiator of heat for the barrel, Hiram Maxim found himself the proud inventor of a rifle that was capable of firing bullets over and over again with accuracy until the bullets ran out. Maxim founded his company based upon the promise of this new weapon. With financial backing from railroad tycoon and steel foundry owner Edward Vickers, "Maxim, Son & Vickers" began creating the gun in the mid 1880s. The American friend's advice had been sound. European governments bought so many automatic machine guns that the foundry ran day and night. Though he lost credit for the invention of the light bulb to Edison, he would now forever be remembered as the man who singlehandedly created the automatic rifle. Hiram Maxim had made the fortune and gained the fame that he and his brother vowed to achieve long ago on the boulder on the edge of property in Sangerville, Maine. In June of 1890, the tall, white-haired and nearly deaf inventor and entrepreneur found his way back to his roots. He returned to the place where he grew up to meet with old friends and show the folks how he had fared in life. He brought one of his automatic rifles with him. Word of his visit quickly circulated and a rather large crowd gathered on the June day on the hill looking down on Dexter's Lake Wassokeag. His aim was a demonstration of his invention to the locals, but this would also notably be the first time an automatic self-loading, modern machine gun would be fired anywhere in North America. With a grateful crowd's silence, he announced that he would discharge the weapon first, and then others could have a 'shot' at it. All was ready and he gently squeezed the trigger, pointing the weapon at the same spot on the ground without moving it, effectively digging a hole. The gun fired at a rate of 666 shots a minute, a truly coincidental number for an invention that would later be called, "The Devil's Paintbrush." Then, he told the audience to imagine an army trying to run up at them from the edge of the lake. He squeezed the trigger again, but this time he swept the aim of the weapon back and forth along the shore, shots ringing, water splashing, clods of dirt flung high into the air. One gun, he claimed, could lay an invading force low very quickly. Though it had not yet been used in battle, his prediction was frighteningly accurate. Next, he asked for Mrs. Bryant to come try her hand at the machine gun, probably because she was the oldest person present from the town. Then, his cousin Caroline Maxim True, had her turn at the trigger. Then, the show was over. He informed the crowd that it was expensive to fire the thing, costing him over $14.00 a minute.  He traveled the landscape of his youth for another week or so before returning to England where, in 1900, Queen Victoria would recommend him for a knighthood, though it was her son Edward who would eventually knight the boy from Sangerville. His weapon had proven itself in the Russo-Japanese War and several smaller British conflicts. Those in power who had possession of the new weapon were confident that it would give them the advantage in the next conflict. Soon enough, the Great War would begin. Since his machine gun had been in service for over twenty-five years, it had been made and copied over and over again by other arms factories throughout Europe and America. Variants of the Maxim gun were used by both sides in World War I.  Though his invention would be used by the ground troops extensively, it would be attached to the newly invented tank and to the the aircraft flying the skies above the lines in France.How does one calculate the amount of human carnage caused by a weapon that could also cut down trees? How many of the 9 million combatants and 8 million civilian casualties of that war died from a bullet fired from a Maxim-designed gun? One need only look at the Battle of the Somme. On the first day of this battle, over 60,000 men died, 85% of them by machine gun fire. The other battles follow suit. Some historians have subtitled World War I as the "machine gun " war.  The boy from Sangerville who as a lad had designed a mousetrap that rid the mill in Abbot, Maine entirely of its infestation, was the man who also made it possible for the nations of Europe to embark upon wholesale slaughter on the battlefield. Most of the deaths of World War One can be directly attributed to machine gun fire and man's blind indifference to his fellow man. As he sat at his table sipping his coffee and reading the lists of the fallen from his morning paper in West Norwood, did he ever cast his mind back to the quiet, tranquil setting of Sangerville Maine? Did he recall the pleasure with which he hunted bear and deer and did it ever concern him that his invention was at that moment taking the lives of millions? We will never know. Maxim was a man of his times and as a power-player, it is easy to think that he had no qualms about his invention. He might have liked the modern adage, "Guns don't kill people; people kill people." Sir Hiram Maxim died in his adopted homeland at Streathan on Nov. 24, 1916, at the age of 77. The only formal education he ever had was from five years in the one-room schoolhouse of Sangerville, Maine, but his informal education made him the epitome of the term 'damned Yankee.' It can be easily argued that no other son of Maine has ever affected the world to the extent that this one man has with his creative mind and his gift of the automatic weapon, the "Devil's Paintbrush." Bibliography Bangor Daily News "Maine's Hiram Maxim lead rags to riches life but remembered Yankee roots" 11-19-1975 Sir Hiram Maxim Biography - Sangerville Public Library Hiram Maxim - Wikipedia Article Encyclopedia Britannica Article - Hiram Maxim PBS - They Made America Series entry - Hiram Maxim PHOTO CREDIT: Wikipedia Commons

Everyone wants to make the same three things,” the Princess said, “money, a name, and a difference. But our actions are dictated by the one we want most.” You can make a name for yourself – become famous – or you can make a lot of money in complete obscurity. Either way, people will consider you a success. But famous people with piles of money seem always to be haunted by the need to make a difference, don't they? You've seen it. So have I. Getting is more fun than having. Building is more fun than maintaining. Giving is more fun than receiving. Just ask Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Bob Buford says, “The first half of life is a quest for success, the second is a quest for significance.” Success is measured by the money and the name you've made. Significance is measured by the difference you've made. GOOD NEWS: Making a difference doesn't always require money and it certainly doesn't require a name. Significance is achieved by caring and doing. Caring without doing is the mark of frightened, tentative, whiners. That's right; small people complain. But big people don't whine. They swing the hammer, bang the problem, sing a song and alter the world. In other words, shut up and do something. Our world is full of people who have achieved success without significance. Edwin Arlington Robinson wrote about these people 115 years ago: Whenever Richard Cory went down town,? We people on the pavement looked at him:? He was a gentleman from sole to crown,? Clean favored,* and imperially slim.?? And he was always quietly arrayed,? And he was always human when he talked; But still he fluttered pulses when he said,? ‘Good-morning,' and he glittered when he walked.?? And he was rich – yes, richer than a king -? And admirably schooled in every grace:? In short, he was everything? To make us wish we were in his place.?? So on we worked, and waited for the light,? And went without the meat, and cursed the bread; ? And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,? Went home and put a bullet through his head. The day is young. There's still plenty of time to make a difference. Someone should have told Richard.   Roy H. Williams   * good-looking

EA Robinson read by Classic Poetry Aloud: http://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/ Giving voice to the poetry of the past. --------------------------------------------- Eros Turannos by Edwin Arlington Robinson(1869 – 1935) She fears him, and will always ask What fated her to choose him; She meets in his engaging mask All reasons to refuse him; But what she meets and what she fears Are less than are the downward years, Drawn slowly to the foamless weirs Of age, were she to lose him. Between a blurred sagacity That once had power to sound him, And Love, that will not let him be The Judas that she found him, Her pride assuages her almost, As if it were alone the cost.— He sees that he will not be lost, And waits and looks around him. A sense of ocean and old trees Envelops and allures him; Tradition, touching all he sees, Beguiles and reassures him; And all her doubts of what he says Are dimmed with what she knows of days— Till even prejudice delays And fades, and she secures him. The falling leaf inaugurates The reign of her confusion; The pounding wave reverberates The dirge of her illusion; And home, where passion lived and died, Becomes a place where she can hide, While all the town and harbor side Vibrate with her seclusion. We tell you, tapping on our brows, The story as it should be,— As if the story of a house Were told, or ever could be; We’ll have no kindly veil between Her visions and those we have seen,— As if we guessed what hers have been, Or what they are or would be. Meanwhile we do no harm; for they That with a god have striven, Not hearing much of what we say, Take what the god has given; Though like waves breaking it may be, Or like a changed familiar tree, Or like a stairway to the sea Where down the blind are driven. For hundreds more poetry readings, visit the Classic Poetry Aloud index.

In episode 13, I talked about the Cassandra poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson and how it applies to America today. In Business, I talked about an idea that put me back into selling and the advantages of keeping sales records. As for Technology, Business Week announces the Top Blogging Tools of 2006. Here is the link: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/bestof2006/results/bloggingtools.html Sorry for the mix-up calling Business Week, Newsweek. I also recommend a podcast to learn more about WordPress at www.wordpresspodcast.org How are you doing with the "Smile Challenge"? Let me know how you are doing by dropping me an e-mail or calling 1-866-TMP-2860. Data will be collected anonymously and the results will be given in a future podcast.

“You've heard that before you die, your whole life flashes before your eyes? This is true. It's called living.” I'd love to take credit for that line, but I lifted it from an obscure novel by Terry Pratchett. It's one of the 716 random quotes that magically appear, like a secret message in your alphabet soup, each time you visit wizardacademy.org. Most of these quotes you won't find anywhere else because I don't take them from quote books or compilations, but from strange and interesting places. And from even stranger and more interesting people. Like David Freeman. When David came to waste a day with me recently, he said, “The goal of life is to take everything that made you weird as a kid and get people to pay you money for it when you're older.” When a friend says something like that, I always write it down. Like the time Alex Benningfield said over a glass of wine, “Success is not spontaneous combustion. You've got to set yourself on fire.” And then there are the phrases I'm told someone else “is always saying.” Like when Pierre Basson mentioned that his wife often says, “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.” Or when Mordecai Silber told me how his father shared this bit of wisdom with him after Morty told him how well his new business was doing: “During a company's growth phase, additional costs that are incurred because of the growth are variable costs. However, when sales begin to decline, all those variable costs miraculously become fixed costs.” That's exactly the kind of thing kids should learn from their fathers. My kids learned from me how to scribble down quotes from characters in television shows: “Life is like a train. It's bearing down on you and guess what? It's going to hit you. So you can either start running when it's far off in the distance, or you can pull up a chair, crack open a beer, and just watch it come.” – Eric Forman, on That 70s Show. A few of my quotes came from Steve Sorensen, a student and friend who will http://www.wizardofads.com/content.asp?id=beaclient (send you a new Creativity Quote each week if you ask to be added to his list.) Last week, Steve's quote was from G.K. Chesterton: “The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul.” More than a dozen were sent to me by my partner, Jeff Eisenberg, another voracious reader of things interesting and obscure. Jeff's most recent email contained this exhortation from James Wood: “Requiring readers to put themselves into the minds of many different kinds of other people is a moral action on the part of the author.” Some of the quotes in my collection are colorful passages I've transcribed from books I've read: “When tourists saw handsome Kelly and ponderous Florsheim, they instinctively loved them, for the Hawaiians reminded them of an age when life was simpler, when laughter was easier, and when there was music in the air.” – James Michener, Hawaii, p.916. “Tunnel vision is a disease in which perception is restricted by ignorance and distorted by vested interest.” – Tom Robbins, Still Life With Woodpecker, p.86. And then, of course, there is the immortal wisdom of Calvin and Hobbes: “I'm not in denial. I'm just selective about the reality I choose to accept.” Some of my diamonds were discovered during the weekly archeological dig I call Monday Memo research; like this beauty taken from a letter by poet Edwin Arlington Robinson to literary critic Harry Thurston Peck: “The world is not a prison house, but a kind of kindergarten, where millions of bewildered infants are trying to spell God with the wrong blocks.” Or this line from the Winchester manuscripts of Thomas Malory, translated by John Steinbeck: “What can I do?' King Arthur cried. 'I see the noblest fellowship in the world crumbling – eroding like a windblown dune. In the hard dark days I prayed and worked and fought for peace. Now I have it and...