Podcast appearances and mentions of Ezra Pound

T.S. Eliot was 22 when he drafted it, 26 when Ezra Pound finally strong-armed it into print, and the first edition took five years to sell 500 copies. In this episode, we walk "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" from that etherized evening sky down to the ragged claws—Dante's epigraph, the yellow fog that's a cat, the coffee spoons, and the overwhelming question nobody ever asks. At the Table:  Katie Dozier, Timothy Green, Brian O'Sullivan, Dick Westheimer, and Joe Barca.

This is Dr. Swati Joshi's inaugural episode on the New Books Network. In this episode, she interviews Dr. Lucy Jeffery about her monograph, Transdisciplinary Beckett: Visual Arts, Music, and the Creative Process (ibidem Press, 2021). She is also co-editor and author of Replaying Communism: Trauma and Nostalgia in European Cultural Production, published by CEU Press and AUP in 2026. She is co-founder of the Replaying Communism project, which received funding from the AHRC SWW-DTP (2023) and the Visegrad Fund (2024). Dr. Jeffery's published research is on Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, Ezra Pound, Ingeborg Bachmann, and Magda Szabó. Her monograph—Transdisciplinary Beckett: Visual Arts, Music, and the Creative Process—was published by Ibidem in 2021, and, in 2022, she co-edited a special issue for Green Letters, entitled ‘A New Poetics of Space'.  This episode weaves together Beckett's transdisciplinary creative process with Dr. Jeffery's journey of research, and cogitation over challenges to preserve integrity and creativity of the author's works in the wake of rapidly developing AI tools. Furthermore, the colour blue occupies an integral role in Dr. Jeffery's monograph, so this episode entails analytical segments on pigments used in Beckett's works beyond the black, white, and grey. Dr. Jeffery and I also briefly discuss our ongoing special issue, "A Writer's Palette: Colour in Late Modernist Literature," for Textual Practice. Colleagues interested in sharing their proposal until 12th December, can write to us on latemodernists@gmail.com, for more details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

This is Dr. Swati Joshi's inaugural episode on the New Books Network. In this episode, she interviews Dr. Lucy Jeffery about her monograph, Transdisciplinary Beckett: Visual Arts, Music, and the Creative Process (ibidem Press, 2021). She is also co-editor and author of Replaying Communism: Trauma and Nostalgia in European Cultural Production, published by CEU Press and AUP in 2026. She is co-founder of the Replaying Communism project, which received funding from the AHRC SWW-DTP (2023) and the Visegrad Fund (2024). Dr. Jeffery's published research is on Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, Ezra Pound, Ingeborg Bachmann, and Magda Szabó. Her monograph—Transdisciplinary Beckett: Visual Arts, Music, and the Creative Process—was published by Ibidem in 2021, and, in 2022, she co-edited a special issue for Green Letters, entitled ‘A New Poetics of Space'.  This episode weaves together Beckett's transdisciplinary creative process with Dr. Jeffery's journey of research, and cogitation over challenges to preserve integrity and creativity of the author's works in the wake of rapidly developing AI tools. Furthermore, the colour blue occupies an integral role in Dr. Jeffery's monograph, so this episode entails analytical segments on pigments used in Beckett's works beyond the black, white, and grey. Dr. Jeffery and I also briefly discuss our ongoing special issue, "A Writer's Palette: Colour in Late Modernist Literature," for Textual Practice. Colleagues interested in sharing their proposal until 12th December, can write to us on latemodernists@gmail.com, for more details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

This is Dr. Swati Joshi's inaugural episode on the New Books Network. In this episode, she interviews Dr. Lucy Jeffery about her monograph, Transdisciplinary Beckett: Visual Arts, Music, and the Creative Process (ibidem Press, 2021). She is also co-editor and author of Replaying Communism: Trauma and Nostalgia in European Cultural Production, published by CEU Press and AUP in 2026. She is co-founder of the Replaying Communism project, which received funding from the AHRC SWW-DTP (2023) and the Visegrad Fund (2024). Dr. Jeffery's published research is on Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, Ezra Pound, Ingeborg Bachmann, and Magda Szabó. Her monograph—Transdisciplinary Beckett: Visual Arts, Music, and the Creative Process—was published by Ibidem in 2021, and, in 2022, she co-edited a special issue for Green Letters, entitled ‘A New Poetics of Space'.  This episode weaves together Beckett's transdisciplinary creative process with Dr. Jeffery's journey of research, and cogitation over challenges to preserve integrity and creativity of the author's works in the wake of rapidly developing AI tools. Furthermore, the colour blue occupies an integral role in Dr. Jeffery's monograph, so this episode entails analytical segments on pigments used in Beckett's works beyond the black, white, and grey. Dr. Jeffery and I also briefly discuss our ongoing special issue, "A Writer's Palette: Colour in Late Modernist Literature," for Textual Practice. Colleagues interested in sharing their proposal until 12th December, can write to us on latemodernists@gmail.com, for more details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/performing-arts

This is Dr. Swati Joshi's inaugural episode on the New Books Network. In this episode, she interviews Dr. Lucy Jeffery about her monograph, Transdisciplinary Beckett: Visual Arts, Music, and the Creative Process (ibidem Press, 2021). She is also co-editor and author of Replaying Communism: Trauma and Nostalgia in European Cultural Production, published by CEU Press and AUP in 2026. She is co-founder of the Replaying Communism project, which received funding from the AHRC SWW-DTP (2023) and the Visegrad Fund (2024). Dr. Jeffery's published research is on Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, Ezra Pound, Ingeborg Bachmann, and Magda Szabó. Her monograph—Transdisciplinary Beckett: Visual Arts, Music, and the Creative Process—was published by Ibidem in 2021, and, in 2022, she co-edited a special issue for Green Letters, entitled ‘A New Poetics of Space'.  This episode weaves together Beckett's transdisciplinary creative process with Dr. Jeffery's journey of research, and cogitation over challenges to preserve integrity and creativity of the author's works in the wake of rapidly developing AI tools. Furthermore, the colour blue occupies an integral role in Dr. Jeffery's monograph, so this episode entails analytical segments on pigments used in Beckett's works beyond the black, white, and grey. Dr. Jeffery and I also briefly discuss our ongoing special issue, "A Writer's Palette: Colour in Late Modernist Literature," for Textual Practice. Colleagues interested in sharing their proposal until 12th December, can write to us on latemodernists@gmail.com, for more details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Dr. Swati Joshi's inaugural episode on the New Books Network. In this episode, she interviews Dr. Lucy Jeffery about her monograph, Transdisciplinary Beckett: Visual Arts, Music, and the Creative Process (ibidem Press, 2021). She is also co-editor and author of Replaying Communism: Trauma and Nostalgia in European Cultural Production, published by CEU Press and AUP in 2026. She is co-founder of the Replaying Communism project, which received funding from the AHRC SWW-DTP (2023) and the Visegrad Fund (2024). Dr. Jeffery's published research is on Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, Ezra Pound, Ingeborg Bachmann, and Magda Szabó. Her monograph—Transdisciplinary Beckett: Visual Arts, Music, and the Creative Process—was published by Ibidem in 2021, and, in 2022, she co-edited a special issue for Green Letters, entitled ‘A New Poetics of Space'.  This episode weaves together Beckett's transdisciplinary creative process with Dr. Jeffery's journey of research, and cogitation over challenges to preserve integrity and creativity of the author's works in the wake of rapidly developing AI tools. Furthermore, the colour blue occupies an integral role in Dr. Jeffery's monograph, so this episode entails analytical segments on pigments used in Beckett's works beyond the black, white, and grey. Dr. Jeffery and I also briefly discuss our ongoing special issue, "A Writer's Palette: Colour in Late Modernist Literature," for Textual Practice. Colleagues interested in sharing their proposal until 12th December, can write to us on latemodernists@gmail.com, for more details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/art

The rise of generative AI has put new urgency into ancient questions. What is consciousness, and can machines ever have it? We dive into the data that reveal a surge in sexually transmitted infections in Europe. And our obituaries editor considers the life of Mary de Rachewiltz, translator and tireless defender of her father, Ezra Pound. Watch extended clips from Insider here.Guests and host:Alok Jha, science & technology editorStephen Hurford, newsdesk writerAnn Wroe, obituaries editorRosie Blau, co-host of “The Intelligence”Jason Palmer, co-host of “The Intelligence”Topics covered: AI, consciousnesssexual health, STIs, STDs, EuropeMary de Rachewiltz, Ezra PoundListen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to The Economist. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The rise of generative AI has put new urgency into ancient questions. What is consciousness, and can machines ever have it? We dive into the data that reveal a surge in sexually transmitted infections in Europe. And our obituaries editor considers the life of Mary de Rachewiltz, translator and tireless defender of her father, Ezra Pound. Watch extended clips from Insider here.Guests and host:Alok Jha, science & technology editorStephen Hurford, newsdesk writerAnn Wroe, obituaries editorRosie Blau, co-host of “The Intelligence”Jason Palmer, co-host of “The Intelligence”Topics covered: AI, consciousnesssexual health, STIs, STDs, EuropeMary de Rachewiltz, Ezra PoundListen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to The Economist. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Liza Libes is a writer and literary critic at Pens and Poison. Her parents escaped the Soviet Union. She went to Columbia. She found that Columbia's English Department had replaced literature with Marxist theory, postcolonial studies, and critical theory. She's been pushing back ever since. We talked about: the teachers who made us both writers; reading Wallace Stevens's The Snowman — out loud, in full — and the seventh grade class that made Liza stand in the snow for an hour to understand it; Hemingway, Ezra Pound, and the fascism problem; what happened to Columbia's English Department and why it matters for publishing; why Marxism is fundamentally an ideology of resentment (Bertrand Russell said it 100 years ago); the novel Yesteryear and what it reveals about contemporary literary self-righteousness; why writing characters who disagree with you is the whole point; the Emily Wilson translation of the Odyssey and what "a complicated man" does to Odysseus's character; and Christopher Nolan's Odyssey film — specifically the Cyclops scene he cut, why it was the scene that defined Odysseus, and why its absence drains the heroism from the entire story. Follow Liza at Pens and Poison on Instagram → @pensandpoison TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 — Intro — who is Liza Libes and what is Pens and Poison? 1:20 — Looking back on your 18-year-old writer self 2:51 — The teachers who made us writers — Brother Patterson and Poetry Friday 5:34 — Standing in the snow to understand Wallace Stevens — The Snowman read aloud 10:31 — The Lost Generation: Hemingway, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot — and the fascism problem 13:03 — Shakespeare and Co., Paris, and missing Notre Dame before the fire 14:57 — Columbia's English Department: literary theory replaced literature 16:58 — Marxist literary theory, critical theory, and postcolonial studies explained 18:28 — Her parents escaped the Soviet Union — why she takes Marxism personally 19:28 — What literature used to be — humanistic inquiry vs. class consciousness 21:41 — Academia made literature esoteric — and publishing followed 23:01 — The DSA voter: overeducated, underpaid, and resentful 24:44 — Yesteryear — the trad wife novel, Anne Hathaway, and literary self-righteousness 26:03 — When the author's voice drowns out the character's voice 27:14 — Dostoevsky, Lionel Shriver, and characters the author disagrees with 30:23 — Writing outside your experience — her trans character, Lou's gay character 33:22 — Lou's story published alongside Joyce Carol Oates and Junot Diaz 35:20 — Her new novel — exploring faith and Jewish theology 37:32 — Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter in Waiting for Godot 39:03 — The Emily Wilson Odyssey translation — "a complicated man" vs. "cunning" 41:10 — What makes Odysseus great — the Cyclops, the cunning, the hubris 43:25 — Nolan's film: the Cyclops scene is gone — and why that ruins everything 45:42 — Greek hubris — Icarus, Arachne, and why pride destroys heroes 47:24 — The sirens scene: what it should have felt like vs. what Nolan did 48:30 — The overall verdict on Nolan's Odyssey — heroism is missing 49:46 — Outro — find Liza at Pens and Poison Watch full episodes on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4Vb53s4I0A&list=PLb5trMQQvT077-L1roE0iZyAgT4dD4EtJ Listen on Apple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-lou-perez-podcast/id1535032081 Listen on Spotify → https://open.spotify.com/show/2KAtC7eFS3NHWMZp2UgMVU  Co-host of Happy Hour Econ → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/happy-hour-econ/id1863476697  Lou's book — That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore: https://amzn.to/3VhFa1r  TheLouPerez.com |  info@thelouperez.com  Newsletter: https://substack.com/@louperez #Literature #LiteraryFiction #LizaLibes #PensAndPoison #Odyssey #ChristopherNolan #Columbia #MarxistTheory #ClassicLiterature #LouPerezPodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Liza Libes is a writer and literary critic at Pens and Poison. Her parents escaped the Soviet Union. She went to Columbia. She found that Columbia's English Department had replaced literature with Marxist theory, postcolonial studies, and critical theory. She's been pushing back ever since. We talked about: the teachers who made us both writers; reading Wallace Stevens's The Snowman — out loud, in full — and the seventh grade class that made Liza stand in the snow for an hour to understand it; Hemingway, Ezra Pound, and the fascism problem; what happened to Columbia's English Department and why it matters for publishing; why Marxism is fundamentally an ideology of resentment (Bertrand Russell said it 100 years ago); the novel Yesteryear and what it reveals about contemporary literary self-righteousness; why writing characters who disagree with you is the whole point; the Emily Wilson translation of the Odyssey and what "a complicated man" does to Odysseus's character; and Christopher Nolan's Odyssey film — specifically the Cyclops scene he cut, why it was the scene that defined Odysseus, and why its absence drains the heroism from the entire story. Follow Liza at Pens and Poison on Instagram → @pensandpoison TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 — Intro — who is Liza Libes and what is Pens and Poison? 1:20 — Looking back on your 18-year-old writer self 2:51 — The teachers who made us writers — Brother Patterson and Poetry Friday 5:34 — Standing in the snow to understand Wallace Stevens — The Snowman read aloud 10:31 — The Lost Generation: Hemingway, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot — and the fascism problem 13:03 — Shakespeare and Co., Paris, and missing Notre Dame before the fire 14:57 — Columbia's English Department: literary theory replaced literature 16:58 — Marxist literary theory, critical theory, and postcolonial studies explained 18:28 — Her parents escaped the Soviet Union — why she takes Marxism personally 19:28 — What literature used to be — humanistic inquiry vs. class consciousness 21:41 — Academia made literature esoteric — and publishing followed 23:01 — The DSA voter: overeducated, underpaid, and resentful 24:44 — Yesteryear — the trad wife novel, Anne Hathaway, and literary self-righteousness 26:03 — When the author's voice drowns out the character's voice 27:14 — Dostoevsky, Lionel Shriver, and characters the author disagrees with 30:23 — Writing outside your experience — her trans character, Lou's gay character 33:22 — Lou's story published alongside Joyce Carol Oates and Junot Diaz 35:20 — Her new novel — exploring faith and Jewish theology 37:32 — Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter in Waiting for Godot 39:03 — The Emily Wilson Odyssey translation — "a complicated man" vs. "cunning" 41:10 — What makes Odysseus great — the Cyclops, the cunning, the hubris 43:25 — Nolan's film: the Cyclops scene is gone — and why that ruins everything 45:42 — Greek hubris — Icarus, Arachne, and why pride destroys heroes 47:24 — The sirens scene: what it should have felt like vs. what Nolan did 48:30 — The overall verdict on Nolan's Odyssey — heroism is missing 49:46 — Outro — find Liza at Pens and Poison Watch full episodes on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4Vb53s4I0A&list=PLb5trMQQvT077-L1roE0iZyAgT4dD4EtJ Listen on Apple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-lou-perez-podcast/id1535032081 Listen on Spotify → https://open.spotify.com/show/2KAtC7eFS3NHWMZp2UgMVU  Co-host of Happy Hour Econ → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/happy-hour-econ/id1863476697  Lou's book — That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore: https://amzn.to/3VhFa1r  TheLouPerez.com |  info@thelouperez.com  Newsletter: https://substack.com/@louperez #Literature #LiteraryFiction #LizaLibes #PensAndPoison #Odyssey #ChristopherNolan #Columbia #MarxistTheory #ClassicLiterature #LouPerezPodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's poem ponders man's dignity. 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

Grötiga terroristtankar, banbrytande filosofi och viktiga litterära författarskap. Allt rymdes hos Bo Cavefors förlag. Det får en av fundera över dagens intellektuella klimat, säger Tor Billgren. Lyssna på alla avsnitt i Sveriges Radios app. ESSÄ: Detta är en text där skribenten reflekterar över ett ämne eller ett verk. Åsikter som uttrycks är skribentens egna. Först sänd 2018-06-14.”RAF: texter”, som publicerades på Bo Cavefors förlag i oktober 1977 måste vara en av bokhistoriens mest vältajmade utgivningar. Det är en 520-sidig antologi med texter av aktivister inom den västtyska terrorgruppen Röda Arméfraktionen, RAF.Cavefors berättar om publiceringen i Malmökonstnären Lena Mattssons filminstallation ”I betraktarens öga”, som visades på Moderna Museet i Malmö 2014. Förutom den svenska boken, gav han också ut en utgåva på tyska, eftersom inget tyskt förlag vågade göra det. För att böckerna inte skulle fastna i tullen, fabricerade han ett fejkomslag: ”Kärlek med förhinder” stod det på framsidan av ett stort antal av de tyska böckerna.Cavefors hade starka drivkrafter, både politiska och litterära. I Lena Mattssons intervjufilm kallar han sig ”kulturell onanist”.Det som gör boken så vältajmad, är att det var just i oktober 1977, som palestinska PFLP kapade ett Lufthansaplan med kravet att ett antal fängslade RAF-ledare skulle friges.I fem dagar irrade planet runt i Mellanöstern med fem besättningsmedlemmar och 86 passagerare som gisslan, sju av dem barn. Tidigt på morgonen den 17 oktober kunde planet slutligen landa i Mogadishu, Somalia. Det stormades av tysk specialpolis, och gisslan fritogs.Följande morgon hittades RAF:s fängslade ledare, Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin och Jan-Carl Raspe döda i sina fängelseceller i vad som förmodligen var ett koordinerat självmord.I samma veva lägger alltså Bo Cavefors ”RAF: texter” på bokhandelsdiskarna.Det var förstås också en mycket kontroversiell utgivning. RAF hade vid det laget mördat 16 personer i sina olika aktioner, varav två i Stockholm under ockupationen av Västtyska ambassaden 1975.Och våren 1977 hade SÄPO slagit till mot en RAF-trogen terrorcell i Sverige som planerade att kidnappa före detta ministern Anna-Greta Leijon i utpressningssyfte. Så hösten 1977 visste alla vad RAF var. Bo Cavefors hade en särskild näsa för det som låg i tiden.Han startade sitt bokförlag 1959, men det är först 2018 som historien om förlaget berättas utförligt i bokform. Det är bokhistorikern Ragni Svensson som gör det i sin doktorsavhandling ”Cavefors – Förlagsprofil och mediala mytbilder i det svenska litteratursamhället 1959–1982”.Första året gav den då 27-årige förläggaren ut nio titlar från sitt föräldrahem i Limhamn, bland annat ”Sju algeriska studenters vittnesmål om tortyren i Frankrike” och tre böcker av den mycket kontroversielle poeten Ezra Pound.Stig Claesson sökte sig tidigt till förlaget, liksom en ung Lars Norén. Honom refuserade dock Cavefors, tre gånger på tre år.Förlaget fick snabbt en vänsterpolitisk profil. Ragni Svensson noterar att utgivningen kom att ”spegla eller rentav föregå den väg som den svenska vänsterrörelsen kom att ta framåt slutet av 1960-talet”.Cavefors gav ut Mao Tse-tung, Rosa Luxemburg, Antonio Gramsci, Marx, Stalin, Lenin och Nordkoreas diktator Kim Il Sung.Det kom tjogtals med titlar som ”En socialistisk kultursyn”, ”Marxismens politiska ekonomi” och ”Kulturrevolutionen vid Kinas universitet”.Han introducerade tänkare och filosofer som Roland Barthes och Michel Foucault. Peter Weiss knöts tidigt till förlaget, och 1975 gav Cavefors ut den nigerianske författaren Wole Soyinka, 11 år innan han fick Nobelpriset.Det är inte dåligt för vad som länge var ett enmansförlag. Men Cavefors hade starka drivkrafter, både politiska och litterära. I Lena Mattssons intervjufilm kallar han sig ”kulturell onanist”.Att läsa om Bo Cavefors skapar funderingar om intellektuell takhöjd och diskussionsklimat nu och då. Vill man få en överblick över vidden av utgivningen kan man ta till en annan bok från 2018: ”BOC – en bok om Bo Cavefors Bokförlag”, som innehåller en komplett bibliografi.De Caveforsböcker som jag själv har starkast kontakt med är Salvador Dalís självbiografi, som tidigt väckte mitt intresse för konst. En annan är William Burroughs ”Den nakna lunchen”, som Cavefors tog till Sverige 1978. Jag hittade den på en loppmarknad i Simrishamn 1996 och läste den på ett kvavt tåg samma sommar som jag skulle rycka in i Flottan. Boken var osprättad, så jag satt med min morakniv och skar. Sida efter sida sköljde bokens febriga och erotiska hallucinationer över mig.Förlaget gick under i det som kom att kallas Caveforsaffären; en stormig process som spelades upp kring 1980. Bo Cavefors hade vunnit en upphandling från Kulturrådet om att ge ut Strindbergs samlade verk i ny utgåva. Men mitt under förberedelsearbetet drogs beslutet tillbaka.Officiellt på grund av brister i upphandlingsförfarandet, men i den debatt som följde menade Cavefors försvarare inom kulturvärlden att det var hans kontroversiella utgivning som var det egentliga skälet. Han var för obekväm, för besvärlig.Snart kom också anklagelser om ekonomisk brottslighet. Han satt häktad i polishuset i Lund i nio dagar, men frikändes sedan på 10 av 11 åtalspunkter. Förlaget gick i konkurs och i början av 1981 såldes det enorma boklagret i en legendarisk utförsäljning. Det är förmodligen från denna som min osprättade Burroughsbok härstammar.Att läsa om Bo Cavefors skapar funderingar om intellektuell takhöjd och diskussionsklimat nu och då. Hade utgivningarna av till exempel Ezra Pound, Stalin och den svenske fascistledaren Per Engdahl, vars memoarer Cavefors gav ut 1979, kunnat stå emot dagens sociala medierdrev och polariserade åsiktsjournalistik?Hade ett etablerat förlag idag kunnat ge ut visdomsord från Islamiska Statens teologer, eller Anders Behring Breiviks manifest?Bo Cavefors har motiverat utgivningen av RAF-boken med att det rörde sig om ”viktiga dokument för den tiden”.Att publicera något måste inte betyda att man ställer sig bakom det. Det finns en historisk och vetenskaplig poäng med att tillgängliggöra material för den tänkande allmänheten, även av kontroversiell, oetisk och korkad natur.Kanske är den här nakenheten exhibitionism, precis som det kan vara exhibitionism att ge ut böcker.Efter tiden med förlaget har Bo Cavefors i hög grad fortsatt med sin kulturella onani. Han har skrivit böcker och gett ut tidskrifter, men också samarbetat med olika konstnärer. I Lena Mattssons installation som visades på Moderna i Malmö, ingår förutom intervjufilmen, bland annat också en liten projektion av en naken Cavefors från en pjäs som han satte upp i Malmö 2005.Den här nakenheten återkommer i flera konstnärliga samarbeten, till exempel med Martin Bladh på Fylkingen i Stockholm 2009, och med Leif Holmstrand. Boken ”Ett rum på tredje våningen” består av textflöde och bilder, där en åldrad Cavefors poserar i olika sexuella situationer, inte sällan insnärjd i Holmstrands virkade girlanger.Kanske är den här nakenheten exhibitionism, precis som det kan vara exhibitionism att ge ut böcker: att torgföra sina åsikter och posera med vad man tycker är viktigt.Kanske är nakenheten provokation, precis som det kan vara provokation att ge ut Stalin eller ett tjockt manifest med ”grötiga terroristtankar och livsfarlig våldsromantik”, som en av recensenterna beskrev RAF-boken.För 40–50 år sedan yttrade sig denna inskränkthet genom upprop om moralisk resning, idag genom krav på trygga rum och triggervarningar.Men det är ett ytligt sätt att se på saken. Jag ser snarare nakenheten som ett verktyg för att ifrågasätta kroppsideal och avslöja fördomar, precis som utmanande bokpubliceringar kan avslöja inskränkthet och en subjektiv och godtycklig syn på yttrandefrihet.För 40–50 år sedan yttrade sig denna inskränkthet genom upprop om moralisk resning, idag genom krav på trygga rum och triggervarningar.Ett samhälle behöver sina obekväma och besvärliga personer. Det är de som lockar den indignerade flocken att demonstrera var toleransens gränser går.Tor Billgren, frilansjournalist LitteraturRagni Svensson: Cavefors – förlagsprofil och mediala mytbilder i det svenska litteratursamhället 1959–1982. Ellerströms, 2018.Anna-Lina Brunell, Ragni Svensson, Jonas Ellerström, Bo Cavefors: BOC – en bok om Bo Cavefors förlag. Tragus förlag, 2018.Leif Holmstrand & Bo Cavefors: ”Ett rum på tredje våningen” (Holmstrand Böcker, 2015)Martin Bladh & Bo I. Cavefors: ”Qualis artifex perero” (Styx, 2013) FilmerLena Mattsson: ”In the eye of the beholder”Lena Mattsson: ”Den kulturelle onanisten”

Today's guest is today is Dr. Greg Barnhisel. Greg is a graduate of Reed College, New York University, and the University of Texas at Austin. He is now a professor of English at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is the editor of The Bloomsbury Handbook to Cold War Literary Cultures, Pressing the Fight: Print, Propaganda, and the Cold War, and the scholarly journal Book History. Greg has written three books as well, including Cold War Modernists: Art, Literature, and American Cultural Diplomacy, and James Laughlin: New Directions and the Remaking of Ezra Pound. He's here discuss his newest book, Code Name Puritan, which is available now from the University of Chicago Press. It's about the life of Norman Pearson, an author, poet, professor, and member of the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. Connect with Greg: Bluekky: @gbarnhisel.bsky.app Instagram: @gbarnhisel Check out the book, Code Name Puritan, here. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo233208318.html Connect with Spycraft 101: Get Justin's latest book, Murder, Intrigue, and Conspiracy: Stories from the Cold War and Beyond, here. spycraft101.com IG: @spycraft101 Shop: shop.spycraft101.com Substack: spycraft101.substack.com Patreon: Spycraft 101 Find Justin's first book, Spyshots: Volume One, here. Check out Justin's second book, Covert Arms, here. Download the free eBook, The Clandestine Operative's Sidearm of Choice, here. Kruschiki The best surplus military goods delivered right to your door. Use code SPYCRAFT101 for 10% off! https://kruschiki.com/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Recorded by Academy of American Poets staff for Poem-a-Day, a series produced by the Academy of American Poets. Published on June 27, 2026. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.poets.org⁠

A Note from James:If I could tell my children to read one post of mine, it would be this post.Influence is how they will navigate a world of uncertainty.Robert Cialdini is the most influential person in the world. And by that I mean, he wrote the book Influence, which sold 3 million copies and defines the six critical aspects of all influence.Now he has a new book, Pre-Suasion, going 10x deeper into the concepts of persuasion. I got him on my podcast so I could ask the 1,000 questions I have.Small story from the book:If you name a restaurant “Studio 97” instead of “Studio 17,” people are more likely to tip higher.If you ask a girl for her phone number outside a flower store, triggering feelings of romance, she is more likely to give it to you than if you ask her outside a motorcycle store.And 500 other stories.The environment is just as important as what you say.Before the podcast began, I gave him a book as a gift: The Anxiety of Influence, a history of poetry.What would poetry have to do with influence and marketing?In all art, since the beginning of time, artists have built on the work of the artists of the generation before them.Beethoven depended on a Mozart to be a Beethoven. Picasso depended on a Cézanne. Without Michelson, there would be no Einstein.But poets, for some reason, would deny being influenced.“I never even read Ezra Pound,” shouted one poet at a critic.Poets want to be seen as original.Nobody is 100% original.This is the anxiety of influence.Almost all of our decisions, and even our creativity, are outsourced to the people around us who influence us: peers, teachers, religion, parents, bosses, etc.Our personality is our own particular mishmash of influences.How we deal with that anxiety, how we recognize the influences, learn from them, and build from them, is the birth of all of our creativity.Let me summarize the seven aspects of influence:Reciprocity: If you give someone a Christmas card, they will want to return the favor.Likability: Make yourself trustworthy. For instance, outline the negatives of dealing with you.Consistency: Ask someone for a favor. Now they will say to themselves, “I am the type of person who does James a favor.”Social Proof: If you are trying to get someone to do X, show them that “a lot of your peers do X.” For instance, if you are at a bar and you are a guy trying to meet women, bring your women friends and not your guy friends with you.Authority: “Four out of five dentists say…”Scarcity: “Only 100 iPhones left at this store!”Unity: You and I are the same because of location, values, religion, etc.I've used each of the above in business.They work.They will make you money.The entire purpose of language is to influence.We are not strong animals. We are weak.The language of influence saved us.Probably a word like “Run!” was the first word spoken.A word of influence.And it worked.I'm still running from the things I fear.So speak to influence.Don't speak to call a flower yellow.Speak to breathe spirit into an idea, to be enthusiastic, to convey emotion, to influence.This is the only way to have an impact with your unique creativity.I gave Robert the book as a gift — reciprocity — assuming we would have a great podcast.And we did.But then I thought later, I can't even remember how Robert got on my podcast.I highly recommend his book in the podcast and even in this post.As he got into his car after the podcast in order to go to his next interview, I started thinking:“Hmmm, who influenced who?”Episode Description:Robert Cialdini wrote the book on persuasion — literally. His classic Influence became one of the defining books on why people say yes, how decisions get shaped, and why the smallest cue in the room can change the outcome of a conversation.In this episode from the archive, James talks with Cialdini about Pre-Suasion, the idea that persuasion starts before the actual pitch. It begins with what people notice, what they feel, what is in the environment, and what frame has already been set before the first real ask is made.They talk about flower shops, restaurant names, voting booths, Warren Buffett's shareholder letters, Anwar Sadat's negotiation instincts, and the rabbi who helped save thousands of lives with one sentence. But the episode is not just about marketing. It is about how people make decisions under uncertainty — and how to use influence ethically, whether you are asking for a job, building a business, negotiating a deal, writing a sales letter, or trying to become more trusted.What You'll Learn:Why persuasion often begins before the message — and how small cues in the environment can make people more receptive.How Cialdini's original six principles of influence work: reciprocity, consistency, social proof, scarcity, authority, and liking.Why Cialdini added a seventh principle, unity — the feeling that “we are the same” — and why it can be even stronger than liking.When to use social proof versus authority, and how to decide which kind of evidence matters most in a given situation.Why admitting weakness first can build trust, and how Warren Buffett uses honesty as a persuasion tool instead of a liability.Timestamped Chapters:[00:00] Introduction and episode preview[01:25] Interview begins — James introduces Robert Cialdini and Pre-Suasion[03:12] The flower shop study: why context changes the answer before the question is asked[05:48] Valentine Street and the hidden power of unrelated cues[06:42] Wine stores, voting booths, and fluffy cloud mattresses[08:10] Are humans irrational, or are shortcuts necessary?[10:17] How the pictures on your wall can change what you write[11:36] The six — now seven — principles of influence[12:00] Reciprocity: the Hare Krishna flower example and the power of personalized gifts[16:40] Consistency: Anwar Sadat, Henry Kissinger, and giving people a reputation to live up to[19:30] Cialdini's undercover research with sales organizations[23:30] Social proof: medical no-shows, restaurant menus, and what happens when a message backfires[26:43] Social proof as feasibility: “people like me can do this”[29:07] Authority: when expert endorsement beats crowd validation[33:55] Why companies lose with better products when they fail to frame the decision properly[35:10] Building authority from zero by using honesty and scarcity[37:05] The Avis “We're number two” campaign and the trust value of admitting weakness[38:24] Warren Buffett's shareholder letters and the persuasive power of leading with mistakes[41:30] Unity: Cialdini's seventh principle of influence[44:24] The rabbi, the Japanese tribunal, and the sentence that saved a community[48:30] Applying unity in job interviews, dating, and negotiations[51:10] Loss aversion and how uncertainty changes persuasion[55:00] Why long sales letters can outperform short ones[55:30] Cialdini's practical framework: find what is true, direct attention to it, then make the case[59:00] Fake scarcity and why false urgency destroys trust[65:00] Closing thoughts on ethical influence and genuine specificityAdditional Resources:Robert Cialdini — Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion — Cialdini's classic book on the core principles of persuasion and compliance. Robert Cialdini — Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade — the follow-up book discussed throughout the episode, focused on what happens before the persuasive message itself. Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letters — referenced in the episode as a real-world example of trust-building through candor and weakness-first communication. Daniel Kahneman and Prospect Theory — Cialdini references the role of loss aversion and uncertainty in persuasion; Kahneman received the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for integrating psychological research into economic decision-making. Chiune Sugihara — the Japanese diplomat connected to the story Cialdini uses to explain unity and shared identity. The Avis “We're Number Two” Campaign — discussed as an example of turning a weakness into credibility by being honest before making the positive case.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.comDavid Marchese has spent the past decade interviewing famous people, from Quincy Jones to Nicolas Cage. He is co-host of “The Interview,” the New York Times Q&A series, and before that, he interviewed bold-faced names for Vulture and NYT Magazine. But he doesn't see his job as “interviewing celebrities” — at least, that's what he says after his old pal Sarah introduces him as such. It's true that Marchese interviews all sorts of people, from author Michael Pollan to happiness expert Laurie Santos. But fame — and its excesses, contradictions, and illusions — is the backdrop for many of his best-known conversations, and it's the launchpad here for a chat about collective experiences, how to ask better questions, how journalism has changed since the days of Playboy, and why discomfort might be a key ingredient to a great interview. NOTE: This is an audio-only episode! Also discussed …As well as:* Sarah sees an advantage to David being “deeply Canadian” * “Celebrity is the coin of the realm.” Or is it?* Nicolas Cage … inspired by Gumby?* Jim Jarmusch did not do interviews that lasted less than an hour* Editor burnout is real* Adam Moss, genius* Friend o' the pod David Rensin and his dozens of Playboy interviews* Age is an undervalued asset in celebrity interviews* Denzel Washington, Nicole Kidman, Edward Norton, Anthony Hopkins* Interviewing as surgery and when to put down the knife* Sarah is still waiting on that mixed tape David promised in 2008Plus: David quotes Ezra Pound, Joyce Carol Oates and Elmore Leonard, what Clive James got right about Americans and fame, and much more!After the paywall: “Which celebrity interview was the most uncomfortable?”We're trying to ask better questions. Like: Will you become a paid subscriber?

In preparation for next week's conversation with Adam Plunkett, author of a new major biography of Robert Frost (1874-1963), we revisit an earlier episode about the widely anthologized (and often misunderstood) New England poet. In this episode, which first aired in 2017 as Episode 93, Jacke dives into a curious but compelling story from the years just before World War I, when a struggling Frost hastily packed up his family and moved to London in search of a friend. Although Frost's efforts to ingratiate himself with W.B. Yeats and Ezra Pound fizzled, he soon found a man, critic Edward Thomas (1878-1917), who championed Frost's poetry and became one of Frost's best friends. Frost in turn inspired Thomas to write his own poetry – until something happened on one of their walks in the woods that would forever change them both. Professor Bill Hogan of Providence College joins Jacke to recount the full story of Frost and Thomas: their friendship, their falling out, and how one of Frost's (and America's) most famous poems, “The Road Not Taken,” inspired by Frost's views of Thomas, has been widely misunderstood by generations of readers. The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠gabrielruizbernal.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Help support the show at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/literature⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠historyofliterature.com/donate⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here is our exclusive conversation with Ed Vulliamy in full as he gives us a look at the letters between his Great-Aunt Gladys and Ezra Pound.Produced by Charlotte Pardy Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Ed Vulliamy gives us an exclusive look at the letters between his Great-Aunt Gladys and Ezra Pound; and David Horspool dips a toe into the luscious world of the lido.'Lido Land: How Britain Learned to Make a Splash', by Tom FortProduced by Charlotte Pardy Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Thanks to our producer Kenny Hill, we have a very special treat for ANZAC Day. Renouned Australian stage and international cinema actor Richard Roxburgh reads the poem; ‘The Fallen”. Richard Roxburgh is one of Australia's most accomplished and versatile actors, celebrated for his work across acclaimed international film, television and stage productions. His standout film credits include Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge! and Elvis, Mel Gibson's Oscar-winning Hacksaw Ridge, James Cameron's Sanctum, and Force of Nature: The Dry 2, which earned him a Best Supporting Actor nomination at the 2025 AACTA Awards. Most recently, Richard portrayed journalist Robert Greste in The Correspondent, controversial political figure Joh Bjelke-Petersen in Joh: Last King of Queensland and is featured in the animated film Lesbian Space Princess, which won the Teddy Award for Best Feature Film at the 2025 Berlinale. On television, Richard is best known for his iconic portrayal of Cleaver Greene in the multi-award-winning ABC series Rake, a role that earned him a Silver Logie and AACTA Award for Best Actor. Other significant screen work includes Hawke, Blue Murder, Bali 2002 opposite Rachel Griffiths, Stan's drama series Prosper, and international series such as Netflix's The Crown and HBO's Catherine the Great alongside Helen Mirren. A highly respected stage performer, Richard headlined productions for the Sydney Theatre Company and Company B, including Uncle Vanya, The Present, Waiting for Godot, Hamlet, and The Seagull. *** We have included a brief biography of the English poet, Laurence Binyon, who wrote the famed poem, ‘The Fallen'. Because of the cultural importance Binyon has on ANZAC Day, and Armistice (Remembrance) Day and how War Memorials are commemorated in the West. Binyon was a prolific English poet and scholar of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, whose career spanned 50 years. During this time, he authored numerous poetry collections and plays, two historical biographies, and several art history volumes, including books on the works of Asian artists, English watercolourists, and William Blake's drawings and engravings. He is perhaps best remembered for his World War I poem, “For the Fallen”, and his translation of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, which he translated in its original terza rima, Dante's original rhyming scheme, which was much lauded by Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot and other poets of the time. Poetry and visual arts shaped his career, the majority of which was spent with the British Museum, where he began in the department of printed books in 1895 before moving to department of prints and drawings, from which he retired in 1933. His first book of poetry, Lyric Poems (1894), was quickly followed by two books on painting, Dutch Etchers of the Seventeenth Century (1895) and John Crone and John Sell Cotman (1897). Later books such as Painting in the Far East (1908) and The Flight of the Dragon (1911) reflect this interest in Chinese, Japanese, and Indian arts and cultures. Ezra Pound praised The Flight of the Dragon and thought of Binyon as a pioneer in the Western appreciation of Asian art. Binyon served as an orderly in the Red Cross during World War I, and his experiences would become an important part of his poetry. From 1915 to 1916 he worked in a military hospital in France, an experience reflected in his war poem “Fetching the Wounded.” His collections The Winnowing Fan (1914), The Anvil (1916), The Cause (1917), and The New World (1918) deal with the war as a noble cause. One reviewer from Literature Digest contended that WWI as a subject brought a new vitality to the poet's work: “Laurence Binyon's poetry once was somewhat coldly ‘literary'—aloof from common human experience, but the war has given him new vigor and new humanity.” His best-known war poem, “For the Fallen,” has been frequently anthologized was widely embraced by the British public. “As the casualty lists grew,” notes John Hatcher in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, “the poem became the focal expression of national grief, both alone and in Sir Edward Elgar’s choral work The Spirit of England (1916–17). Its central quatrain was carved on cenotaphs and tombstones worldwide and is still recited at annual Remembrance Day commemorations: “They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old / Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn / At the going down of the sun and in the morning / We will remember them.” Some of Binyon's greatest poetry was produced during the final decade of his life, “greater perhaps than that of any of his generation except [W.B.] Yeats,” according to John Hatcher. Among this exceptional later work are such volumes as The North Star and other Poems (1941), The Burning of the Leaves (1944), and the unfinished “The Madness of Merlin” (1947). During this time, Binyon was also at work on his much-admired and well-received terza rima translation of Dante's Inferno (1933), Purgatorio (1938), and Paradiso (1943). Mere days after completing final revisions on his Paradiso translation, Laurence Binyon died of bronchopneumonia on March 10, 1943. Upon Binyon's death, English author and literary critic Cyril Connolly honoured the poet in New Statesman and Nation as someone who understood “how to be both warm and detached, in fact, a sage.” Binyon biography and photo courtesy of: Poetryfoundation.org ‘The Last Post’ performed by the RAAF Band (Royal Australian Air Force) The post ANZAC Day 2026: Richard Roxburgh, Famed Australian Actor, Reads: ‘For The Fallen’. appeared first on Saturday Magazine.

El niño que heredó el silencio es un título muy hermoso para una historia muy triste. La que nos cuenta Pablo Vierci, el autor de La sociedad de la nieve, y productor asociado a la adaptación al cine que hizo Juan Antonio Bayona. La novela arranca con una misteriosa llamada telefónica que recibe Andrés Pardos.El dinero es un motor narrativo. Ha servido para contar miles de historias. Y es la sustancia que ha elegido Brugués Mitjans para escribir Los herederos de la codicia. Una obra que ha publicado RBA. Ezra Pound fue un personaje contradictorio, amigo de Mussolini, pero también de Scott Fitzgerald o Hemingway. Un personaje con muchas capas. Vamos a desnudarlo.En la sección de Audiolibros, Todos aman a Clara, de David Foenkinos. Y además, últimas recomendaciones. Regresa Lorenzo Silva.

Talking with writer, reader, wanderer Znore , anonymous author of the blog Group Name for Grape Juice and his essay collection exploring imagination across philosophy, religion, literature, conspiracy, culture, a name plucked from Finnegans Wake, a pseudonym as portal, a thumb raised to the Dao of ideas.On hitchhiking as a philosophy of life, on synchronicities, on conversations continuing between strangers, on looking for the connective narrative between Blake and Nietzsche and McLuhan, on perception as incarnation, on bodying forth a world through the senses, on Nietzsche's claim that we are all greater artists than we know, on the imagination as Christ, on supercharging passive perception into active creation, on the non-dual lurking beneath, on CS Lewis and Tolkien and the myth that is also history, on Owen Barfield and original participation, on Steiner's evolution of consciousness, on animism as the religion of the earth, on the 8 million kami of Shinto and finding spirits in toilets and trees and rocks, on idolatry as the epoch of separation, on Philip K. Dick and the band that only played once but left many recordings, on finding God in the litter of the street, on Joyce and the refusal to separate high and low culture, on Finnegans Wake, on Vipassana, on prayer as the fastest route to sacred space, on Meister Eckhart's , on the original sangha and the early Christians as communists, on Marx's alienation mapped onto Barfield's idolatry, on the potlatch and the destruction of surplus, on Robert Anton Wilson's axiom that communication only happens between equals, on politics as the great distraction from the spiritual project, on the Chöd ritual and monks inviting demons to devour them in charnel grounds, on the eye atop the conspiracy pyramid being your own ego, on Jacob Böhme's God of wrath and God of love as one God, on AI as both Pentecost and Antichrist, on masks as honest practice, on raising children, on quiet resistance, on the cosmic communism of saving all beings from suffering, on life, on practice, on love.ExcerptsOn HitchhikingEvery time you're on the road and you put your thumb out, you're tapping into the DAO and just any ride that you get, completely alters the course of your life in a certain way.On ImaginationThe primary imagination is the imagination of the I am, which is God, but it's reflected in us through our perception.And so we all have this, we all have the imagination of God in the sense that we perceive things and we create the world that we behold with our senses. It's already anti-authoritarian. But I'll call myself an anarchist anyway, just to just to emphasize that, that my main focus is freedom and liberty, right? And especially that includes above all the freedom of the imagination. The liberty of the imagination.On PoliticsCosmic communism, not related to state control and Stalinism, none of that, but it's save all beings from suffering. That's what my politics are all about…Death Sweat of the Cluster: Selected Essays from Groupname for Grapejuice.By ZnoreAn inebriated exploration of reality and other myths featuring Finnegans Wake, William Blake, Robert Anton Wilson, Philip K. Dick, Emma Goldman, Ezra Pound, Robert Duncan, Terence McKenna, Gertrude Stein, Carl Jung, Marshall McLuhan and others as guides and waylayers. A cast of hundreds. Blog becomes book becomes new medium entirely. Synchronicity, siddhis, numerology, psychedelics, anarchy, the gods, yes. The poetics of anti-authority. Beautifully illustrated. Read with tea.Group Name for Grape Juicehttps://groupnameforgrapejuice.blogspot.com/ Get full access to Leafbox at leafbox.substack.com/subscribe

The story of how the FBI sent a team of agents to track down suspected American spies, collaborators and traitors into Europe at the end of World War II, including the poet Ezra Pound.

Episode 89 From An Essay on Man by Alexander Pope  Mark McGuinness reads and discusses an excerpt from Epistle II of An Essay on Man by Alexander Pope. https://media.blubrry.com/amouthfulofair/media.blubrry.com/amouthfulofair/content.blubrry.com/amouthfulofair/89_From_An_Essay_on_Man_by_Alexander_Pope.mp3 Poet Alexander Pope Reading and commentary by Mark McGuinness From An Essay on Man Epistle II By Alexander Pope Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;The proper study of mankind is man.Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,A being darkly wise, and rudely great:With too much knowledge for the sceptic side,With too much weakness for the stoic's pride,He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast;In doubt his mind or body to prefer;Born but to die, and reasoning but to err;Alike in ignorance, his reason such,Whether he thinks too little, or too much:Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;Still by himself abused, or disabused;Created half to rise, and half to fall;Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled:The glory, jest, and riddle of the world! Go, wondrous creature! mount where science guides,Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides;Instruct the planets in what orbs to run,Correct old time, and regulate the sun;Go, soar with Plato to th' empyreal sphere,To the first good, first perfect, and first fair;Or tread the mazy round his followers trod,And quitting sense call imitating God;As Eastern priests in giddy circles run,And turn their heads to imitate the sun.Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule –Then drop into thyself, and be a fool!   Podcast Transcript In the early 18th century, Alexander Pope's poetry was known to every cultured person in England. He was a fashionable, successful, wealthy writer and the preeminent poet of his age. He was also a canny businessman who published his translations of Homer via subscription, an early form of crowdfunding, and they sold so well he built himself, an extravagantly large villa in Twickenham – and its famous subterranean grotto still exists today. His political satires were so sharp and topical that he was rumoured to carry a pair of loaded pistols when going for a walk, in case one of his targets took violent exception. Phrases from his poetry are still proverbial: ‘hope springs eternal', ‘Fools rush in where angels fear to tread', ‘a little learning is a dangerous thing', ‘To err is human; to forgive divine', ‘What oft was thought but ne'er so well expressed', and also the title of the movie, ‘eternal sunshine of the spotless mind'. But these days, Pope has really fallen out of fashion. He's seen as archaic and artificial. In an age when formal poetry is out of fashion, for many people he represents the worst kind of formal poetry: his very regular metre and full rhymes sound clunky to our ears. His rhyming couplets are undoubtedly clever, but that's part of the problem, because these days we associate poetry with emotions and self-expression, so cleverness is seen as a little suspect and somehow inauthentic. And I'll be honest, for a long time, I had that image of Pope. He represented everything the Romantics rebelled against at the end of the 18th century, and as a young poet I was on the side of the Romantics, so I had no interest in Pope. However, a few years ago, I challenged myself to have another look at his work, and what I discovered was a really sharp and thought-provoking and witty and formidably skilful poet, who in certain moods, is an absolute pleasure to read. And he doesn't fit every mood, but then there aren't many poets who do. So turning to today's poem, An Essay on Man is one of Pope's major works, it's about 1,300 lines long. As the title suggests it's a meditation on the nature of what he called mankind, and we call humankind, we have to make allowance for the historic focus on the male as representative of the species. It's also a didactic poem, he's not just reflecting on the subject, he is telling us what we should think about it. Which again, is a deeply unfashionable stance for poets these days, at least when they are on the side of a conservative or establishment position. And he does this in the form of a series of verse epistles, verse letters, which are addressed to Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke. The epistle form also means that the poem addresses the reader in a very direct manner, as you would expect in a letter. His basic stance, which we find in many of his poems, is of a reasonable man writing for a group of like-minded people, trying to establish some sort of common sense, shared ideas and principles, in a world where these need to be debated and defined and defended. This was the world of the coffee house and the salon, where people came together to debate, sometimes in very robust fashion. It came to be known as the Augustan age in English literature, by comparison with the satirical and political poetry of the age of Augustus Caesar. OK looking more closely at the poem itself, the excerpt I just read is from the second Epistle, and one of the first things we notice is what Milton would have called the ‘jingling' rhymes: Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man. Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise, and rudely great: With too much knowledge for the sceptic side, With too much weakness for the stoic’s pride, It's pretty unmistakeable isn't it? One pair of rhymes after another. And in case you're wondering, yes, these rhyming couplets do go on all the way through the poem, and indeed all the way through most of Pope's work. And not just in Pope: for over a century, from about 1650 to 1780, this was a hugely popular verse form. They are known as heroic couplets because they are associated with epic narrative poems, such as John Dryden's translations of Virgil and Pope's translations of Homer. Each line is in iambic pentameter, the familiar ti TUM ti TUM ti TUm ti TUM ti TUM, with two lines next to each other forming couplets, and the poem proceeding with one couplet after another. The form can be traced back to Chaucer, who used rhyming couplets for many of his narrative poems. But by the time of Dryden and Pope it had evolved into a tighter couplet form, described as closed couplets, meaning that they were typically self contained, with a sentence, or a discrete part of a sentence, beginning and ending inside the couplet. For instance: Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man. That stands on its own as a single thought, a unit of sense, ending with a full stop. And the full rhyme of ‘scan' and ‘man' means the couplet snaps shut at the end – this is the closed couplet effect we associate with heroic couplets. In the next couplet he introduces the idea of man as a creature of ‘middle state': Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise, and rudely great: And then another couplet elaborates on the sense of being pulled in different directions: With too much knowledge for the sceptic side, With too much weakness for the stoic's pride, So the poem proceeds one unit of sense at a time. The couplets are like Lego bricks, and Pope used them to build just about anything he wanted: literary and philosophical discourse here in the Essay on Man and in his Essay on Criticism; mock-heroic social comedy in The Rape of the Lock; actual epic in his translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey; and satire in The Dunciad. It's easy to see how this could become monotonous, and in the work of most poets of the time, it did. But Pope's great achievement was to take this established form and perfect it, sticking very strictly to the formal pattern, while varying the syntax, the grammatical patterns, with great subtlety and complexity, to keep the reader on their toes. Let's take another look at the first couplet. Notice the little pause in the middle of the first line, after ‘thyself': Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; This divides the line into two parts, conveying the dramatic tension in Pope's argument: he's saying that humans are ambitious for knowledge, they want to ‘scan' God, to examine him, but they should really focus on self-knowledge. This tension between opposites is known as antithesis, it's a rhetorical pattern we looked at back in episode 58 about one of Sir Philip Sidney's sonnets, and it's very common in Pope. And the tension is resolved in the next line, which is all one phrase, with no pause: The proper study of mankind is man. Have another listen to the couplet, to hear how the tension is established and then released: Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man. So when all of this comes together, the tension and release, the regular rhythm of the metre and the full rhymes clinching the couplet, it has the effect of making the words sound truer than true. The following couplet picks up on the antithesis, and extends it into paradox: Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise, and rudely great: An isthmus is a narrow strip of land between two bodies of water, so standing on it, you could easily feel precarious and threatened. ‘Darkly wise' means ‘dimly wise', possessing a little knowledge, but not enough for full understanding. And ‘rudely great' means ‘powerful but coarse and unfinished'. And I think we can recognise what Pope is saying from our own experience – that sense of knowing enough to know how little we really know; of having great potential, but struggling to fulfil it. And isn't it delightful how Pope compresses all those feelings into these neat little paradoxes: ‘darkly wise and rudely great'. In another famous line, he describes true eloquence as ‘What oft was thought but ne'er so well expressed', which is exactly what he achieves here. We can also note that ‘darkly wise' and ‘rudely great' are not only antitheses expressed as paradoxes, they are also an example of another rhetorical pattern: parallelism, where similar structures are repeated with variation. In this case ‘darkly' and ‘rudely' are both adverbs and ‘wise' and ‘great' are both adjectives, so grammatically they are identical, which suggests both similarity and difference in mankind's relationship to knowledge and power. The next couplet uses a more elaborate parallelism: With too much knowledge for the sceptic side, With too much weakness for the stoic's pride, So both lines say ‘With too much something for the something else'. It's hard to miss the pattern, isn't it? And notice how the couplet form is perfect for laying out two ideas that seem to counterbalance each other perfectly. So we're only six lines in and Pope has put his finger on a central conundrum in human existence, and conveyed it with at least three rhetorical patterns nested inside each other – antithesis, paradox and parallelism. Not only that, he's handled the metre and rhyme with great skill, wrapping each thought up in the neat little bow of a rhyming couplet. And if your mind is starting to boggle, welcome to the world of Pope's verse: elegant, authoritative and very, very clever. When we look closely, there's a lot going on inside every single couplet. He's like a watchmaker, working at a tiny scale, making an instrument with great precision and balance, that keeps perfect time, and chimes beautifully. And Pope's contemporaries would have found it easier to follow the sense than we do, because they were used to reading this kind of stuff. But I'm sure the poetry would often have given them pause, even if only for a moment, as they read. And my guess is that they would have enjoyed this slight difficulty, and the pleasure of making out the sense, with the little dopamine hit of understanding. Like unwrapping a sweet before you can pop it in your mouth and taste it. So I hope we're starting to see why Pope is the undisputed master of the heroic couplet. Even T. S. Eliot had to admit defeat, when he wrote a passage in this style for The Waste Land, only for Ezra Pound to point out tactfully that he couldn't compete with Pope, and draw the red pencil through it. But the form is more than simply one couplet after another. When he stacks them together, they create verse paragraphs, longer units of thought, that function very like paragraphs in prose. So having established the idea of man caught between opposing forces, he goes on to elaborate on the theme to dazzling effect: He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest; In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast; In doubt his mind or body to prefer; Born but to die, and reasoning but to err; Alike in ignorance, his reason such, Whether he thinks too little, or too much: The couplets are individually brilliant, and cumulatively overwhelming, both in terms of the mental effort required to tease out their meanings, and the tension between action and inaction, divine and bestial impulses, mind and body, birth and death, reason and error. And I think that's why I find this line so funny: Whether he thinks too little, or too much: It feels like he's throwing his arms up and laughing and admitting that he's overthinking it all. The verse paragraph ends with three more couplets, where he sums up the nature of man: Chaos of thought and passion, all confused; Still by himself abused, or disabused; Created half to rise, and half to fall; Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all; Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled: The glory, jest, and riddle of the world! Although Pope is describing a ‘chaos of thought', his own thinking is always sharp, however convoluted his argument becomes. So he sticks to the themes of power and knowledge, undercutting man's pretension by saying he is ‘Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all', and ‘Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled'. And he ends this paragraph with another rhetorical device, the tricolon, which uses three parallel elements to build to a conclusion: The glory, jest, and riddle of the world! We're familiar with this pattern in famous quotes from Julius Caesar, ‘I came, I saw, I conquered', the US Declaration of Independence, ‘Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness', and Shakespeare: ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen!' Here, Pope uses it with typical precision, since if someone is both the ‘glory… of the world' and it's ‘jest', i.e. the butt of its jokes, then that makes that person a ‘riddle': The glory, jest, and riddle of the world! So this sums up the nature of man, and sets up the jesting irony of the next verse paragraph: Go, wondrous creature! mount where science guides, Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides; Instruct the planets in what orbs to run, Correct old time, and regulate the sun; If this were the start of the poem, we might be forgiven for taking Pope's words at face value, but in the light of what has gone before, it's pretty clear that ‘wondrous creature' is a mocking criticism. He was writing this in an age where Newtonian physics was in the ascendancy and people were full of enthusiasm about the new discoveries in science and the possibility of understanding and mastering the physical world. And given that we are still living in a so-called age of reason, I think his criticisms of scientific overreach are still relevant, and the joke is still funny, when he talks about instructing the planets in what orbits to follow, correcting time and regulating the sun. As if measuring were full understanding, let alone complete power. But Pope doesn't confine his criticism to scientists. He also has philosophers in his sight: Go, soar with Plato to th' empyreal sphere, To the first good, first perfect, and first fair; Or tread the mazy round his followers trod, And quitting sense call imitating God; He clearly doesn't have a lot of time for Plato's first principles. Neither is he impressed by the contemporary vogue for what we would call Orientalism: As Eastern priests in giddy circles run, And turn their heads to imitate the sun. It's possible that he had in mind the whirling dervishes of Persia, or maybe this is just a caricature of his idea of ‘Eastern priests'. So obviously this is a joke that hasn't aged so well. OK he ends this verse paragraph with a final jab, which restates the idea from the opening couplet in bluntly comic fashion: Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule – Then drop into thyself, and be a fool! It's hard to imagine a more apt image of intellectual presumption than trying to teach Eternal Wisdom a thing or two, but just in case we miss the point, Pope rams it home with relish: Then drop into thyself, and be a fool! And this is another characteristic aspect of Augustan poetry, particularly the satirical kind, that it can be very crude and direct, with a passage of sophisticated argument followed by a line or two where the mask drops and the insult is laid bare. And no, it's not big or clever, but let's face it, sometimes it can be deeply satisfying. One more little detail, which I can't help wondering about: notice how both of these couplets, conveying the same basic idea in very different tones, both hinge on the word ‘thyself': Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man. Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule – Then drop into thyself, and be a fool! So that word ‘thyself' could be used to refer to various individuals, and knowing Pope, I wouldn't be surprised if he intended all of them at once. Firstly, the phrasing sounds proverbial, in which case each couplet is an injunction to mankind at large. Secondly, it could refer to the reader, any reader, of the poem, whether Viscount Bolingbroke, an 18th-century wit, or you and me, reading the poem together on this podcast. It could also refer to the specific targets of Pope's criticism, such as the overreaching scientists or philosophers. I think Pope may also have had in mind a target nearer to home: himself. W. B. Yeats wrote in one of his essays, ‘We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry'. And it's entirely possible that Pope is doing both at once: we've seen the brilliance of his rhetoric, in puncturing the pretensions of his fellow men and women. Yet by making poetry as well as rhetoric, he is arguably arguing with himself as well. It was of course be entirely right and proper and expected for a Christian such as Pope to admonish himself as well as others, for the many and various sins he describes in An Essay on Man. So from a moral viewpoint, I think I'm on pretty safe ground in suggesting that ‘thyself' includes Pope. But I would go further, and say that the idea of a brilliant mind that is not quite brilliant enough to fully understand itself may have been a deeply personal subject for Pope. Because what we have here is an extremely clever warning about taking cleverness to extremes. Maybe the irony was not lost on Pope. As he wrote in another poem, An Essay on Criticism, ‘A little learning is a dangerous thing'. So perhaps as we hear this passage again, and enjoy the sparkling wit and scurrilous attacks on others, we can also detect a note of self-reflection, and self-accusation, that makes it a little more poignant than it first appears. From An Essay on Man Epistle II By Alexander Pope Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;The proper study of mankind is man.Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,A being darkly wise, and rudely great:With too much knowledge for the sceptic side,With too much weakness for the stoic's pride,He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast;In doubt his mind or body to prefer;Born but to die, and reasoning but to err;Alike in ignorance, his reason such,Whether he thinks too little, or too much:Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;Still by himself abused, or disabused;Created half to rise, and half to fall;Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled:The glory, jest, and riddle of the world! Go, wondrous creature! mount where science guides,Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides;Instruct the planets in what orbs to run,Correct old time, and regulate the sun;Go, soar with Plato to th' empyreal sphere,To the first good, first perfect, and first fair;Or tread the mazy round his followers trod,And quitting sense call imitating God;As Eastern priests in giddy circles run,And turn their heads to imitate the sun.Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule –Then drop into thyself, and be a fool!   Alexander Pope Alexander Pope was an English poet and translator who was born in 1688 and died in 1744. As a Catholic he was barred from university and public office, so he educated himself and forged a brilliant literary career, becoming the leading poet of Augustan England, celebrated for his razor-sharp satire and polished heroic couplets. Early success came with An Essay on Criticism and The Rape of the Lock, followed by monumental translations of Homer that made him financially independent. His later works, including The Dunciad, attacked dullness and corruption. In An Essay on Man, he explored human nature, providence, and moral order with epigrammatic clarity. He lived at Twickenham, where he created a famous garden and grotto.   A Mouthful of Air – the podcast This is a transcript of an episode of A Mouthful of Air – a poetry podcast hosted by Mark McGuinness. New episodes are released every other Tuesday. You can hear every episode of the podcast via Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts or your favourite app. You can have a full transcript of every new episode sent to you via email. The music and soundscapes for the show are created by Javier Weyler. Sound production is by Breaking Waves and visual identity by Irene Hoffman. A Mouthful of Air is produced by The 21st Century Creative, with support from Arts Council England via a National Lottery Project Grant. Listen to the show You can listen and subscribe to A Mouthful of Air on all the main podcast platforms Related Episodes From An Essay on Man by Alexander Pope Episode 89 From An Essay on Man by Alexander Pope Mark McGuinness reads and discusses an excerpt from Epistle II of An Essay on Man by Alexander Pope.Poet Alexander PopeReading and commentary by Mark McGuinnessFrom An Essay on Man Epistle II By Alexander Pope Know... Occupied by Tim Rich Episode 88 Occupied by Tim Rich  Tim Rich reads ‘Occupied' and discusses the poem with Mark McGuinness.This poem is from: Dark Angels: Three Contemporary PoetsAvailable from: Dark Angels is available from: The publisher: Paekakariki Press Amazon: UK... Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold Episode 87 Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold  Mark McGuinness reads and discusses ‘Dover Beach' by Matthew Arnold.Poet Matthew ArnoldReading and commentary by Mark McGuinnessDover Beach By Matthew Arnold The sea is calm tonight.The tide is full, the moon lies...

An Erotic Invitation to the MoonMoonrise: A Poem & Writing Prompts for Secret AnticipationHello, Wonderful Reader,Today, I've chosen a special erotic poem and writing prompts for you to explore secret anticipation. So grab a pen and paper, set aside 20 minutes to journal, and let's get started.MoonriseBy H.D. 1886-1961Will you glimmer on the sea? Will you fling your spear-head on the shore? What note shall we pitch?We have a song, on the bank we share our arrows— the loosed string tells our note:O flight, bring her swiftly to our song. She is great, we measure her by the pine-trees.Source: Poetry Foundation. This poem is in the public domain.

On 23 April 1925, T.S. Eliot was officially invited by Geoffrey Faber to join the newly founded publishing house of Faber & Gwyer. It was to prove the most momentous appointment in the history of 20th-century poetry in English. Among Faber & Gwyer's first books was Eliot's Poems 1909-1925, which included ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock', The Waste Land, and ‘The Hollow Men'. As pioneering talent scout for Faber & Gwyer (which would become Faber & Faber in 1928) Eliot launched the careers of such as W.H. Auden, Louis MacNeice, David Jones and Stephen Spender, and oversaw the publication of the work of the poet who had discovered him, Ezra Pound. Exactly a hundred years on, poet and critic Mark Ford, Emeritus Professor of English at Sheffield John Haffenden, former Faber managing director Toby Faber and Senior Lecturer at the University of Brighton Aakanksha Virkar visited the Bookshop to discuss the events leading up to Eliot's appointment, and his early years with the firm that would become virtually synonymous with his name. More from the Bookshop: Discover our author of the month, book of the week and more: ⁠https://lrb.me/bkshppod⁠ From the LRB: Subscribe to the LRB: ⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/subsbkshppod Close Readings podcast: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/crbkshppod LRB Audiobooks: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobooksbkshppod Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/storebkshppod Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk

This is the second episode in a series called THE SPIRIT-ERA & ITS AFTERMATHS in which I look at the way spiritual, technological, and occult flourishings at the turn of the 19th into 20th century are still with us today.In the second installment in the series, I talk with ALLAN JOHNSON Professor of English Literature at University of Surrey, meditation coach, and author of the excellent book, The Sacred Life of Modernist Literature: Immanence, Occultism, and the Making of the Modern WorldIn that book, Allan states: “The occult has always walked the perilous line between desiring a textual form while resisting the possibility that this form can ever be completely achieved.”One of my big frustrations with spiritual influencers is that most of them don't seem to have a good grasp of art, but particularly literature. They do something like this: they read literature that has magical CONTENT and create metaphors and analogies that - all-too conveniently - mirror the lessons of their own esoteric view. And they generally reach for the usual suspects: Tolkien, Le Guin, Coehlo, etc.But the location of esoteric strength in literature is less in the content and much more in its FORMS and STYLES. These forms were brought to us most prominently in modernist fiction - in James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Franz Kafka, and more. But also by poets like TS Elliot, Ezra Pound, and WB Yeats.In the works of modernist writers, the reader's involvement is demanded to complete the text. These are writers who initiate us as we read their works.This conversation with Allan offered the chance to explore ideas I'd been longing to talk about for years, I'm so excited to share them with you here.SUPPORT THE SHOW ON PATREONBuy Allan's book

Nicola Magrin"Dall'erba dei campi alle stelle del cielo"Rabindranath TagoreSalani Editorewww.salani.it«'Leggo Rabindranath ogni giorno; leggere un suo verso significa dimenticare tutti i tormenti del mondo'».W.B. YeatsIspirato da uno dei poeti più luminosi e complessi del Novecento, Nicola Magrin con i suoi dipinti traccia un itinerario poetico fra luce e silenzio, panorami e costellazioni, disegnando versi che appartengono all'umanità intera. Perché leggere Tagore significa intrecciare la saggezza delle tradizioni orientali con una sensibilità universale, entrare in un tessuto di poesia che è canto, preghiera e meraviglia insieme, celebrare l'amore, la natura, il dialogo, il mistero della vita, la sacralità dell'esistenza quotidiana, l'anelito verso l'eternità del tempo e dell'universo attorno a noi. E scoprire come la sua voce riesca ancora oggi a parlare all'uomo contemporaneo con limpidezza e intensità. Un invito alla contemplazione e alla meraviglia, rivolto a chi cerca nella poesia non solo bellezza, ma anche pace e verità.«Lo vediamo vagabondare tra gli alberi, osservare gli occhi fedeli di un cane, come le stagioni dei temporali e dei cieli infiniti dell'India, che lo portano all'ispirazione che è poi l'esistenza vera del poeta, seguendo lo Spirito della fioritura che tutto governa, dalle rotazioni delle stelle, agli amori e ai dolori, all'immensa Energia che pervade l'universo».Dall'introduzione di Brunilde NeroniRabindranath Tagore è stato il poeta e filosofo indiano che ha fatto conoscere e apprezzare in Occidente la grande spiritualità del suo Paese. Nato nel 1861 da una famiglia nobile, a sedici anni fu inviato a studiare in Inghilterra, dove rimase tre anni. Già famosissimo in India, la sua notorietà si diffuse in Europa nel 1913, quando pubblicò, tradotte in inglese da lui stesso, le due raccolte di versi Gitanjali e Il Giardiniere. Subito apprezzato dai grandi poeti come W. B. Yeats e Ezra Pound, fu insignito in quello stesso anno del premio Nobel per la letteratura. Morì nel 1941.Nicola Magrin è nato a Milano nel 1978. Ha illustrato, tra le altre cose, l'opera di Primo Levi (Einaudi), Le otto montagne di Paolo Cognetti (Einaudi), Il silenzio di Erling Kagge (Einaudi), Alpi ribelli di Enrico Camanni (Editori Laterza), Le antiche vie di Robert Macfarlane (Einaudi) e i volumi di Tiziano Terzani (Tea). Ha illustrato il libro di Folco Terzani Il Cane, il Lupo e Dio (Longanesi 2017). Nel 2018 il Centro Saint-Bénin di Aosta ospita la sua mostra personale La traccia del racconto (catalogo Silvana Editoriale). Per i grandi classici ha illustrato Il richiamo della foresta di Jack London nella traduzione di Gianni Celati (Nuages). Nel 2019 illustra il libro di Federico Rampini, L'oceano di mezzo (Editori Laterza) e la favola scritta da Ester Armanino, Una balena va in montagna (Salani Editore). Nel 2020 il libro Passi silenziosi nel bosco di Hugo Pratt, Nicola Magrin e Marco Steiner (Nuages).Diventa un supporter di questo podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/il-posto-delle-parole--1487855/support.IL POSTO DELLE PAROLEascoltare fa pensarehttps://ilpostodelleparole.it/

Before Shakespeare became a literary icon, he was a working writer trying to earn a living in an emerging and often precarious new industry. In The Dream Factory: London's First Playhouse and the Making of William Shakespeare, Daniel Swift explores the dream of making money from creating art, a dream shared by James Burbage, who built The Theatre, the first purpose-built commercial playhouse in London, and a young Shakespeare. Nobody had ever really done that before, with playwrights at the time notoriously poor. Swift shows that Shakespeare's creativity unfolded in a rapidly changing London where commercial theater was just beginning to take shape. The Theatre offered Shakespeare the stability, a close team of actors and cowriters, and the professional home that he needed to develop his craft. Swift reveals a playwright who was learning on the job and becoming the Shakespeare we know today. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published November 18, 2025. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. We had help with web production from Paola García Acuña. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. We had technical help from Hamish Brown in Stirling, Scotland, and Voice Trax West in Studio City, California. Final mixing services are provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc. Daniel Swift is an associate professor of English at Northeastern University, London. He is the author of books on Ezra Pound, William Shakespeare, and the poetry of the Second World War, and editor of John Berryman's The Heart Is Strange: New Selected Poems. His essays and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, New Statesman, and Harper's.

durée : 00:32:27 - Les Nuits de France Culture - par : Christine Goémé - La vie mouvementée d'Ezra Pound, poète d'origine américaine qui vécut essentiellement en Europe à partir des années 1910, est le sujet de cette émission de Radio Canada. Personnalité double, à la fois universaliste et défenseur du fascisme, Ezra Pound devient mutique à la fin de sa vie. - réalisation : Virginie Mourthé - invités : Dominique de Roux Ecrivain et éditeur français. (1935-1977) créateur de l revue Les Cahiers de l'Herne.

American intellectuals always seem to believe they are living through the end times. From the fascist poet Ezra Pound in the 1930s to the historian of fascism Timothy Snyder today, they flee America in despair. In Seekers and Partisans,, Boston University historian David Mayers tells the story of these exiled thinkers between 1935 and 1941 — what he calls “the crisis years.” But crisis… what crisis? Compared to Germany, Russia, or even Western Europe, America's troubles were relatively modest. So is history repeating itself nearly a century later? Are today's “Trumpagies” — intellectuals disillusioned with Trump's America — the second coming of Ezra Pound and his fellow seekers and partisans of the interwar years?1. History doesn't repeat — but it rhymes.Mayers argues that the wave of “Trumpagies” today — intellectuals leaving America out of despair — echoes but doesn't duplicate the 1930s exodus. Americans have long fled home in search of moral or political clarity abroad, though their motives shift with each crisis.2. The 1930s “crisis years” were more imagined than real.While Mayers' book Seekers and Partisans frames 1935–1941 as “the crisis years,” he notes that America's troubles then were mild compared to the totalitarian catastrophes of Europe. The panic, he suggests, often existed more in the minds of intellectuals than in the republic itself.3. Idealism and delusion often go hand in hand.Figures like Ezra Pound, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Anna Louise Strong reveal how moral passion can curdle into political blindness — from fascist sympathies to uncritical faith in communism or empire. Smart people, Mayers observes, can “get things dreadfully wrong.”4. The duty isn't to flee — it's to stay.Asked what lessons apply to Trump-era exiles, Mayers insists the responsible act is not flight but persistence: to “stay here and salvage the situation.” The illusion, he says, is that “things are all that brilliant elsewhere.”5. The American Dream includes its disillusionments.From the 1930s “seekers and partisans” to today's disenchanted academics, the impulse to escape America reveals as much about its promise as its failures. The intellectual's panic, Mayers suggests, is part of America's enduring struggle to understand itself.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Storyteller and poet Jay Leeming explores canto one of "The Cantos" by the American poet Ezra Pound. Sequoia trees, blood for ghosts, and the dance of Aphrodite amid a shimmer of gold. www.JayLeeming.com

America saw a significant reverse-migration in the 1800s and 1900s, with 20–50% of Italian immigrants returning to Italy as ritornati and tens of thousands of Americans, including ideologues and workers, moving to Germany, Italy, and the USSR in the 1930s seeking political or economic opportunities. Some of these American expatriates were drawn to revolutionary movements in Europe and Asia, blending idealism with political activism Today’s guest is David Mayers, author of Seekers and Partisans: Americans Abroad in the Crisis Years, 1935–1941. We discuss alienated Americans who went abroad during the interwar years in search of a new home and/or to further deeply personal causes. They include John Robinson, a black aviator who in 1935 led the Ethiopian air force against the Italian invasion; Agnes Smedley, who joined the Chinese communists during the Sino-Japanese war; Helen Keller, an advocate of the seeing- and hearing-impaired; Ezra Pound, a lauded poet who championed Mussolini; and Anna Louise Strong, drawn to Stalin's USSR.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

E598 - Imagination Wizard Jason DeGray Writes About Those Left Behind with his Typewriter - A Space Western and Weird Fiction UniverseAbout the authorImagination Wizard Jason DeGray conjures vivid worlds of adventure, from the lawless deserts of Those Left Behind to the cosmic horrors of The Dark Goddess. A master storyteller, he crafts tales of defiance, brotherhood, and survival that grip fans of Firefly, The Dark Tower, and beyond. Whether it's sci-fi westerns, fantasy epics, or pulse-pounding thrillers, Jason's stories ignite the imagination with rugged heroes and high-stakes action. When not weaving novels, he's exploring the wild deserts of New Mexico, seeking inspiration for his next epic. Dive into Jason's universe, where every book is a portal to rebellion and wonder—start with Those Left Behind and join the fight! Connect on Facebook for new releases and behind-the-scenes lore.Book: Those Left BehindOn Quad's ravaged frontier, survival is a brutal gamble. Zed, a brash mercenary, and Vyx, a brilliant mechanic, are recruited by the cunning Ezra Pound to defy the Colonyal Gyld's iron rule. Joined by Sygurd, a vengeful warrior-monk wielding the mystical Gram, they battle the Strays—ferocious dogmen unleashed by the Gyld to crush rebellion. From scorched deserts to neon-lit slums, their mission to seize a mysterious desert deposit unveils a cosmic conspiracy: a sentient ship, Yshtar, and a liquid that could reshape Quad's fate. Bound by brotherhood and driven by defiance, Zed's crew ignites an uprising against tyrants and alien shadows. Those Left Behind is a gritty sci-fi western packed with rugged heroes and pulse-pounding action, perfect for fans of Firefly and The Dark Tower. Will Quad rise or burn? Join the fight—grab your copy now!https://www.facebook.com/jasondegrayauthor/Support the show___https://livingthenextchapter.com/podcast produced by: https://truemediasolutions.ca/Coffee Refills are always appreciated, refill Dave's cup here, and thanks!https://buymeacoffee.com/truemediaca

CUJO is a podcast about culture in the age of platforms. Episodes drop every other week, but if you want the full experience — including access to our CUJOPLEX Discord and our eternal parasocial friendship — we recommend signing up for a paid subscription.Paid subscribers also get access to The Weather Report, a new monthly episode series where we take stock of where the cultural winds are blowing and tell you what's rained into our brains. In the latest installment, cyberethnographer Ruby Justice Thelot joins us to wax philosophical about the Labubu craze, matcha and “performative male” discourse, and why politicians are lifting weights in public. To whet your appetite, we're lifting the paywall on the episode for the next 48 hours. It's easy to get the impression these days that the traditional media industry is abandoning cultural criticism. Over the past few months, outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Chicago Tribune have been reassigning or letting go of veteran film, music, and theater critics, leaving some to debate what impact, if any, written criticism still has on the culture at large. Bucking this trend (and pretty much all mainstream media logic) is The Metrograph, a new biannual print magazine about cinema from the eponymous repertory theater in New York City's Chinatown. It's long, proudly niche, intentionally disconnected from the news cycle, and available only in print—with the goal of offering deep film fans an experience they won't be able to find online, while inviting a new generation of people into the culture. The recently released second issue includes a 42-page dive into Paul Morrissey's archives, author Gary Indiana's favorite films (RIP), a history of the Japanese pink film, a “cinemap” of Belgrade, and a comic about Jerry Lewis's infamous lost film The Day the Clown Cried. The cover, which we've cropped for this episode's artwork, features a painting by artist Louise Giovanelli inspired by Christina Ricci's character in Buffalo '66.Senior editor Annabel Brady-Brown (formerly of Australia's Fireflies Press) and editor-at-large Nick Pinkerton (film critic, screenwriter of The Sweet East, creator of the Substack Employee Picks, and a former coworker of Emilie's at Kim's Video) join us to discuss the past, present, and future of independent film criticism—and what it means to make a magazine for cinephiles in 2025. We also discuss why younger people in NYC seem to be gravitating back to the movies these days, and how the hyper-IRL, videostore-centric independent film culture of 20 years ago is a good template for what that might look like in the 2020s. Finally, we shout out some of the directors, movies, and micro publications that are making right now such an exciting time for cinema in NYC — and the repertory theaters and video stores we love around the world that are keeping the old Kim's Video spirit alive.Issue 2 of The Metrograph is out now. Buy it here, or at an independent book or magazine store near you.Read more by our guests:”Less rock, more talk: On Paul Morrissey, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Ezra Pound, ‘political' art, and 1988's ‘Spike of Bensonhurst'” by Nick Pinkerton (Employee Picks) “Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows: On the subversive pleasures of Agnès Varda‘s Le Bonheur” by Annabel Brady-Brown (The Metrograph) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theculturejournalist.substack.com/subscribe

Two things: first, we did not want this to be episode 100, so we are instead releasing it as a bonus episode (and who knows how many subsections episode 99.5 will ultimately have).Second, Ezra Pound said to "make it new" (to which I have always added "again"), in reference to the modernist literary movement, and I think about our boy Ezra when we talk about the advent of a "new" meta. As we will discuss in this episode, it could be that the "new" meta is really just the same kind of meta we have faced before (strong supports defining power level), just with new faces. Regardless, you will love and enjoy this episode.Good luck to everyone at NOVA.Join the Slack!There is a sense in which the community talks about how the meta we are in

Episode 183:Today's episode is the first of a short run of guest episodes to see us through the end of the English summer and first up is Daniel Swift, author of ‘The Dream Factory: London's First Playhouse and the making of William Shakespeare'. Given that title I don't think Daniel's book needs any further introduction other than to say that I found it a fascinating read and I hope this episode gives. You a taster of Daniel's work and the research he has undertaken.Daniel Swift is associate professor of English at Northeastern University, London, and has written books on Shakespeare, Ezra Pound, and the poetry of the Second World War and articles for The New York Times, The New Statesman and The Spectator.Links to'The Dream Factory':Yale University Press London: https://yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300263541/the-dream-factory/Macmillan New York https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374601270/thedreamfactory/Amazon UK:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dream-Factory-Londons-Playhouse-Shakespeare/dp/0300263546/ref=sr_1_1?Amazon USA: https://www.amazon.com/Dream-Factory-Londons-Playhouse-Shakespeare/dp/0374601275/ref=sr_1_1?Support the podcast at:www.thehistoryofeuropeantheatre.comwww.patreon.com/thoetpwww.ko-fi.com/thoetp Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“This is a sea that will take your life,” says Matthew Hollis in this week's episode of The World in Time. “This is the cruel sea. This is the hard sea. And it takes extraordinary skill and good luck to survive it. But we come quickly to realize in this poem that actually there is a different kind of allegorical turmoil within as well. It's one of the things that makes this poem so compelling, it seems to me, because it does have ideas about moral choices, and it does have ideas about belonging that seem as important today as they were then. One of the great things that strikes me with the great parts of the Anglo-Saxon opus is how modern it feels—or rather, to put it a different way, how timeless the cares and concerns and worries of human beings can be. Some of the fears about loneliness, some of the fears about pain, some of the worries about doubt, about making a good life or the life of right choosing, are issues that trouble us in exactly the same way, or challenge us in exactly the same way, as they did this sailor.” This week on the podcast, Donovan Hohn speaks with poet Matthew Hollis about his new translation of The Seafarer, about the world from which this mysterious tenth-century Anglo-Saxon poem emerged, about the history of the poem's improbable survival, and about its rediscovery by the Romantics and the Modernists. Into the conversation the episode weaves audio samples from different translations and different recordings, including one made by Lewis Lapham, another by Ezra Pound, and a third by Matthew Hollis himself.

The Dime Museum (Unbridled Books, 2025) is a novel spanning several generations, told in stories that begin in the early 1900s and end during the 2020 pandemic. Set in Chicago, Reading and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Europe, the linked stories tell an overall tale of how the rich and the poor survive in a challenging modern world. Charlie, who's interested in the writing of Ezra Pound, appears in most of the stories, and is a wealthy American college graduate living in Venice. Min (Minerva), his Dominican ex-girlfriend is overwhelmed as a nurse even before the pandemic takes hold. Charlie's great-great grandmother is the source of his wealth, and his great aunt controlled his upbringing. Hinnefeld's characters strive for happiness, struggle to be connected, heal from heartbreak, seek refuge, and find solace in planting gardens, poetry and art. JOYCE HINNEFELD is the author of the short story collections Tell Me Everything (winner of the 1997 Bread Loaf Bakeless Prize in Fiction) and The Beauty of Their Youth (2020), the novels In Hovering Flight (2008) and Stranger Here Below (2010), and other short stories and essays. She is Emerita Professor of English at Moravian University in Bethlehem, PA, director of the Moravian Writers' Conference, and a Program Facilitator with Shining Light, an organization that provides reentry-based programming for incarcerated people throughout the U.S. Find her online at joycehinnefeld.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

The Dime Museum (Unbridled Books, 2025) is a novel spanning several generations, told in stories that begin in the early 1900s and end during the 2020 pandemic. Set in Chicago, Reading and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Europe, the linked stories tell an overall tale of how the rich and the poor survive in a challenging modern world. Charlie, who's interested in the writing of Ezra Pound, appears in most of the stories, and is a wealthy American college graduate living in Venice. Min (Minerva), his Dominican ex-girlfriend is overwhelmed as a nurse even before the pandemic takes hold. Charlie's great-great grandmother is the source of his wealth, and his great aunt controlled his upbringing. Hinnefeld's characters strive for happiness, struggle to be connected, heal from heartbreak, seek refuge, and find solace in planting gardens, poetry and art. JOYCE HINNEFELD is the author of the short story collections Tell Me Everything (winner of the 1997 Bread Loaf Bakeless Prize in Fiction) and The Beauty of Their Youth (2020), the novels In Hovering Flight (2008) and Stranger Here Below (2010), and other short stories and essays. She is Emerita Professor of English at Moravian University in Bethlehem, PA, director of the Moravian Writers' Conference, and a Program Facilitator with Shining Light, an organization that provides reentry-based programming for incarcerated people throughout the U.S. Find her online at joycehinnefeld.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

How do poets write about place, and how does place shape a poet? Play along as the queens place these poems!Please Support Breaking Form!Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.SHOW NOTES: Poems/Poets mentioned in this week's show include:Traci Brimhall, "Shelter in Place." Visit Brimhall's website here. And you can watch her craft talk on revision here (1 hour). José Olivarez, "Eat the Rich." Watch Olivarez read his poem "Guapo" here. And visit him online: https://joseolivarez.com/Jayne Cortez, "I Am New York City"Peter Oresick, "When in 2009 the G20 Summit Convened in Pittsburgh"James Wright, "Autumn Begins in Martin's Ferry, Ohio"Adrian Matejka, "16 Bars Poetica." Listen to a fascinating reading and talk Matejka gave at Bread Loaf in 2024 on his newest book, Last on His Feet, a graphic novel about the boxer Jack Jackson. Matejka's website is https://www.adrianmatejka.com/ Megan Pinto, "Tonight it is Snowing in Rome." Megan Pinto is the author of Saints of Little Faith (Four Way Books, 2024). Visit her online at https://www.meganpinto.com/. And watch her give a reading for Massachusetts Review.Ezra Pound, "In a Station of the Metro"Denis Johnson's "Now" Watch Johnson read in 2016 at Cornell here (~40 min).Naomi Shihab Nye, "Jerusalem"

Recorded by staff of the Academy of American Poets for Poem-a-Day, a series produced by the Academy of American Poets. Published on August 9, 2025. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.poets.org

Join our book club!  / lifeonbooks  Follow Dave on Instagram  / thebookishmanc  Follow Seth on Instagram  / wastemailinglist  Join the Life on Books mailing list to stay up to date on all of our latest book giveaways, projects, and more!https://linktw.in/BRYAnVhWant to read one book from every country? Check out our resource online:https://linktw.in/ZeoltyWant to know my all time favorite books? Click the link below!https://bookshop.org/shop/lifeonbooksFollow me on Instagram:  / alifeonbooks  Follow Andy on Instagram  / metafictional.meathead  The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolanohttps://amzn.to/45k6Mrahttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780312...To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Leehttps://amzn.to/4fkfLNyhttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780060...The Poetry Toolkit by Rhian Williamshttps://amzn.to/46vDo3ohttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9781350...Crow: From the Life and Songs of Crow by Ted Hughes https://amzn.to/40KAxjqOmeros by Derek Walcott https://amzn.to/3JdnCjRhttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780374...Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminskyhttps://amzn.to/454qTcwhttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9781555...Brother by Michael and Matthew Dickmanhttps://amzn.to/4lUatdZGravity's Rainbowhttps://amzn.to/3ISay3nhttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780143...Midden Witch by Fiona BensonLyrical Ballads, with a few Other Poems by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge https://amzn.to/40LQTZ6The Maximus Poems by Charles Olson https://amzn.to/4lbdyFjThese Walls Do Not Fall by H.D.https://amzn.to/3UDWdKmThe ABC of Reading by Ezra Pound https://amzn.to/3UFJtD3The Raven and Other Poems (1845) by Edgar Allen Poehttps://amzn.to/3IXevUlThe Cantos (1962) by Ezra Pound https://amzn.to/3U3wRWhThe Bridge (1930) by Hart Cranehttps://amzn.to/4lVSEeRShadow Ticket by Thomas Pychonhttps://amzn.to/4lUtKMqA Defence of Poetry by Percy Bysshe Shelley https://amzn.to/3U4K4OBLeaves of Grass by Walt Whitman https://amzn.to/479mbNiElegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray https://amzn.to/4mozWMFThe Hocus Pocus of the Universe by Laura GilpinPaterson by William Carlos Williams https://amzn.to/4lVz4z8Context Collapse (2025) by Ryan Ruby

Na estante desta semana temos o “ABC da Leitura", de Ezra Pound; "A Alegria do Descobrimento", de Ruy Cinatti; "Hitler" e o primeiro volume de "Showa – Uma História do Japão", de Shigeru Mizuki; e "Para lá do Muro", de Katja Hoyer. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A bit over a hundred years ago, Ezra Pound corralled a group known as the Imagists that would have a profound effect on poetry as we know it. A controversial figure, Pound explored and enlivened the economy of language and rich images that became founding principles of the group, along with H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), Richard Aldington, William Carlos Williams, Amy Lowell, and F.S. Flint.At the Table:Katie DozierTimothy GreenJoe BarcaDick WestheimerBrian O'Sullivan

In Among My Many Hats, Robin tells all about Page Turners, his game of dramatic interaction for one player and one game moderator, in which he is joined as a scenario writer by Sarah Saltiel, Ruth Tillman, and Wade Rockett. Beloved Patreon backer Michael David Jr. draws us into the Mythos Hut to cross Silver […]

Founded in Chicago in 1914, the avant-garde journal the Little Review became a giant in the cause of modernism, publishing literature and art by luminaries such as T.S. Eliot, Djuna Barnes, William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst, Gertrude Stein, Jean Toomer, William Carlos Williams, H.D., Amy Lowell, Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Stella, Hans Arp, Mina Loy, Emma Goldman, Wyndham Lewis, Hart Crane, Sherwood Anderson, and more. Perhaps most famously, the magazine published Joyce's Ulysses in serial form, causing a scandal and leading to a censorship trial that changed the course of literature. In this episode, Jacke talks to scholar Holly A. Baggett about her book Making No Compromise: Margaret Anderson, Jane Heap, and the Little Review, which tells the story of the two Midwestern women behind the Little Review, who were themselves iconoclastic rebels, living openly as lesbians and advocating for causes like anarchy, feminism, free love, and of course, groundbreaking literature and art. PLUS Phil Jones (Reading Samuel Johnson: Reception and Representation, 1750-1970) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read. Additional listening: 600 Doctor Johnson! (with Phil Jones) 564 H.D. (with Lara Vetter) 165 Ezra Pound The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Of all the great American Modernists, the poetry of Marianne Moore is perhaps the most idiosyncratic, even the most radical, of them all—no small feat in a group of friends and admirers that included Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, e. e. cummings, and HD. Moore's preferred form was a syllabic stanza bespoke to each poetic occasion, like the unique shell of each individual snail or paper nautilus, and often containing rhyme. In these stanzas, Moore hid behind her virtuosic performance of deflection and difficulty and, of course, revealed herself in it, much as one of her pet-subjects, the exotic animal-portrait, contained a self-portrait at its heart. In her poem on the jerboa, Moore contrasts the desert mouse's decorousness with the decadence of empire, and in so doing, distinguishes her ideal of true artistry—a vigorous, humble, and ultimately liberated response to one's natural and formal limitations—with a false art which oppresses the natural in service of the powerful. Wes & Erin discuss Marianne Moore's poem, “The Jerboa,” first published in 1932, and whether power and wealth might paradoxically prove less abundant than the strictures of form and necessity.

Ezra Pound had his own complicated relationship with fame, exercising a profound influence upon 20th-century literature but being tried for treason in the U.S. after broadcasting propaganda for the fascists during WWII. Today's poem is a guarded reflection on the never-ending quest. Happy reading. Get full access to The Daily Poem Podcast at dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

Today's poem is a particularly novel example of an ancient writerly tradition: writing about how hard it is to write. Happy reading.On February 9, 1874, Amy Lowell was born at Sevenels, a ten-acre family estate in Brookline, Massachusetts. Her family was Episcopalian, of old New England stock, and at the top of Boston society. Lowell was the youngest of five children. Her elder brother Abbott Lawrence, a freshman at Harvard at the time of her birth, went on to become president of Harvard College. As a young girl she was first tutored at home, then attended private schools in Boston, during which time she made several trips to Europe with her family. At seventeen, she secluded herself in the 7,000-book library at Sevenels to study literature. Lowell was encouraged to write from an early age.In 1887 Lowell, with her mother and sister, wrote Dream Drops or Stories From Fairy Land by a Dreamer, printed privately by the Boston firm Cupples and Hurd. Her poem “Fixed Idea” was published in 1910 by the Atlantic Monthly, after which Lowell published individual poems in various journals. In October of 1912, Houghton Mifflin published her first collection, A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass.Lowell, a vivacious and outspoken businesswoman, tended to excite controversy. She was deeply interested in and influenced by the Imagist movement, led by Ezra Pound. The primary Imagists were Pound, Richard Aldington, H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), and Ford Madox Ford. This Anglo-American movement believed, in Lowell's words, that “concentration is of the very essence of poetry” and strove to “produce poetry that is hard and clear, never blurred nor indefinite.” Lowell campaigned for the success of Imagist poetry in America and embraced its principles in her own work. She acted as a publicity agent for the movement, editing and contributing to an anthology of Imagist poets in 1915.Lowell's enthusiastic involvement and influence contributed to Pound's separation from the movement. As Lowell continued to explore the Imagist style she pioneered the use of “polyphonic prose” in English, mixing formal verse and free forms. Later she was drawn to and influenced by Chinese and Japanese poetry. This interest led her to collaborate with translator Florence Ayscough on Fir-Flower Tablets in 1921. Lowell had a lifelong love for the poet John Keats, whose letters she collected and whose influence can be seen in her poems. She believed him to be the forbearer of Imagism. Her biography of Keats was published in 1925, the same year she won the Pulitzer Prize for her collection What's O'Clock (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1925).A dedicated poet, publicity agent, collector, critic, and lecturer, Amy Lowell died on May 12, 1925, at Sevenels.-bio via Academy of American Poets Get full access to The Daily Poem Podcast at dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe