Podcast appearances and mentions of Robert Frost

Episode: 1590 The Great Wall of China -- a long and checquered history.  Today, a 2300-year-old wall.

Register your feedback here. Always good to hear from you!I'm actually on the road this week; apologies in advance for any sound issues I may have being away from my normal microphone. We'll be talking about one road God has prepared for us and the challenges we find walking in it; two roads that converge in the woods and why Robert Frost doesn't care which one you take; another road the devil wants you to take and the rock band that's urging you along; and the road leading back home  -- a home that, God willing, I will have arrived at by now.Check out Hal on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/@halhammons9705Hal Hammons serves as preacher and shepherd for the Lakewoods Drive church of Christ in Georgetown, Texas. He is the host of the Citizen of Heaven podcast. You are encouraged to seek him and the Lakewoods Drive church through Facebook and other social media. Lakewoods Drive is an autonomous group of Christians dedicated to praising God, teaching the gospel to all who will hear, training Christians in righteousness, and serving our God and one another faithfully. We believe the Bible is God's word, that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, that heaven is our home, and that we have work to do here while we wait. Regular topics of discussion and conversation include: Christians, Jesus, obedience, faith, grace, baptism, New Testament, Old Testament, authority, gospel, fellowship, justice, mercy, faithfulness, forgiveness, Twenty Pages a Week, Bible reading, heaven, hell, virtues, character, denominations, submission, service, character, COVID-19, assembly, Lord's Supper, online, social media, YouTube, Facebook.  

Discover all of the podcasts in our network, search for specific episodes, get the Optimal Living Daily workbook, and learn more at: OLDPodcast.com. Episode 3584: Jesse Cramer explores how small life decisions can radically shape our future, drawing a surprising connection between Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken and the pursuit of financial independence. Rather than glorifying the FIRE movement, he challenges listeners to consider whether they're building a life they truly enjoy today, or simply trying to escape one they don't. Read along with the original article(s) here: https://bestinterest.blog/two-roads-to-financial-independence/ Quotes to ponder: "FIRE is a road less traveled. But it's not always a better road." "Rather than running towards early retirement, I was using FIRE to run away from an unfulfilling job." "Small changes in input can cause massive shifts in output." Episode references: The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44272/the-road-not-taken Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Discover all of the podcasts in our network, search for specific episodes, get the Optimal Living Daily workbook, and learn more at: OLDPodcast.com. Episode 3584: Jesse Cramer explores how small life decisions can radically shape our future, drawing a surprising connection between Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken and the pursuit of financial independence. Rather than glorifying the FIRE movement, he challenges listeners to consider whether they're building a life they truly enjoy today, or simply trying to escape one they don't. Read along with the original article(s) here: https://bestinterest.blog/two-roads-to-financial-independence/ Quotes to ponder: "FIRE is a road less traveled. But it's not always a better road." "Rather than running towards early retirement, I was using FIRE to run away from an unfulfilling job." "Small changes in input can cause massive shifts in output." Episode references: The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44272/the-road-not-taken Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Gordon Clapp, star of NYPD Blue, Chicago Fire, Eight Men Out, Cheers and Wonder Years, calls in to the WKXL NH Unscripted show to chat about his upcoming performance as Robert Frost at the @barnstormerstheatre in Tamworth June 6th. 

Discover all of the podcasts in our network, search for specific episodes, get the Optimal Living Daily workbook, and learn more at: OLDPodcast.com. Episode 3584: Jesse Cramer explores how small life decisions can radically shape our future, drawing a surprising connection between Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken and the pursuit of financial independence. Rather than glorifying the FIRE movement, he challenges listeners to consider whether they're building a life they truly enjoy today, or simply trying to escape one they don't. Read along with the original article(s) here: https://bestinterest.blog/two-roads-to-financial-independence/ Quotes to ponder: "FIRE is a road less traveled. But it's not always a better road." "Rather than running towards early retirement, I was using FIRE to run away from an unfulfilling job." "Small changes in input can cause massive shifts in output." Episode references: The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44272/the-road-not-taken Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Gordon Clapp, star of NYPD Blue, Chicago Fire, Eight Men Out, Cheers and Wonder Years, calls in to chat about his upcoming performance as Robert Frost at the Barnstormers in Tamworth June 6th.

The best way out is always through. - Robert Frost Check out John Lee Dumas' award winning Podcast Entrepreneurs on Fire on your favorite podcast directory. For world class free courses and resources to help you on your Entrepreneurial journey visit EOFire.com

By the middle of the twentieth century, Robert Frost was widely regarded as America's most popular poet, beloved for the simple, sincere verses that took readers on journeys through the wooded roads of rural New England, accompanied by Frost's wry observations and hardscrabble truths. Just a few years after Frost's death, a scathing biography by Lawrance Thompson painted a different picture of the man, which led critic Helen Vendler to ask, in her review of the biography, whether it was possible to avoid the conclusion that Frost had actually been a "monster." In this episode, Jacke talks to critic and author Adam Plunkett about his new book, Love and Need: The Life of Robert Frost's Poetry, a major new biography that challenges our understanding of Frost's life and poetic legacy. PLUS Ursula Buchan (Beyond the Thirty-Nine Steps: A Life of John Buchan) stops by to discuss her choice for the last book she will ever read. 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

Frank welcomes back occult researcher and Illuminati Watcher founder Isaac Weishaupt for the first time in two years to break down the most coordinated predictive programming rollout we have seen yet. The final trailer for Steven Spielberg's "Disclosure" just dropped, and Isaac argues Spielberg is the king of subconscious programming, hired specifically to walk the public into accepting the alien origin story right as the White House activates aliens.gov and the Department of War begins releasing files. The conversation goes deep. Isaac shares his late nineties ghost hunting story that drove him into Orthodox Christianity and the conclusion that the phenomenon is angels and demons, not little gray men. They cover Jordy Rose summoning Lovecraftian entities through quantum computing, Rudolf Steiner's century-old prediction that vaccines would inoculate the soul, and the CCRU collective whose member Nick Land claims he made contact with entities from the future who use capitalism to manifest AI. From there it is Curtis Yarvin, Peter Thiel's Antichrist lectures, and the 23andMe CIA Nordic bloodline hunt. Then Frank closes with the White House Harambe tweet at ten years, meme magic in 2016, and a Robert Frost parody from John Ward to send everyone off.

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

(Celebrating 80yrs of spectacular community radio!) The Barnstormers Theatre is celebrating 96yrs and Jordan Ahnquist, Artistic Director and Kate Middleton (with a her new title and duties) stop by the WKXL NH Unscripted studios to tell us all about it. And it's a packed season. A “Summer Soiree Gala” in June, a one person show about Robert Frost, Agatha Christie Murder Mystery, the play called “One of the longest-running non-musical plays in the world…”, “a must-see new play that follows a typical board meeting on what seems like a typical day…” and a play that's “Often hailed as one of the most charming musicals ever written." And that's just scratching the surface!!!

The Barnstormers Theatre is celebrating 96yrs and Jordan Ahnquist, Artistic Director and Kate Middleton (with a her new title and duties) stop by to tell us all about it. And it's a packed season. A “Summer Soiree Gala” in June, a one person show about Robert Frost, Agatha Christie Murder Mystery, the play called “One of the longest-running non-musical plays in the world…”, "a must-see new play that follows a typical board meeting on what seems like a typical day…” and a play that's “Often hailed as one of the most charming musicals ever written. And that's just scratching the surface!!!

El salto de fe cambia tu mirada. Independientemente del resultado, el salto de fe deja una marca. Es una marca secreta, solo reconocible por quienes pagaron el precio. Luis Alberto lleva esa marca. Recuenco lleva esa marca. Yo llevo esa marca. No sabría explicarte qué es pero puedo reconocer por la calle a los que dieron el paso. Algo cambia en esos ojos, que ya no vuelven a sentir el miedo paralizante. Este podcast tiene muchas similitudes con los dos episodios de Recuenco porque Luis Alberto también se la ha jugado, pagando el precio personal más alto. Las barreras de entrada, en las empresas y en las carreras profesionales, se esconden en las rutas inesperadas. Tomar tus propias decisiones, cometer tus propios errores, es lo que te dará una ventaja. Solo tú puedes emprender ese camino y así construyes el propósito deseado. Es esta una idea que no puede comprender el que nunca tuvo intención de saltar. En el momento de máxima presión, cuando todos te susurran al oído que no lo hagas, tú decides dar el paso. Esa es la decisión más difícil. Esa es la decisión que todo lo cambia.Aquí tienes algunos links para conocer el fantástico proyecto educativo de Value School:La formación de Value School.Los libros de Value School.El podcast de Value School.Mi conferencia en Value School.Kapital es posible gracias a sus colaboradores:⁠⁠El Proyecto K⁠⁠. Despide a tu asesor financiero.⁠La propuesta de El Proyecto K es que puedes llevarte tú mismo tu propia cartera. No es difícil, si te cuentan antes cómo hacerlo. Tu dinero estará protegido de la inflación siempre que sigas una estrategia. Pablo y yo damos las explicaciones y ofrecemos el acompañamiento, pero eres tú quien al final del día tiene que mandar la orden de compra. La teoría es para todos fácil de entender, es la ejecución lo que genera los problemas. Abrimos nuevas plazas para las ediciones de junio. Las fechas son el 9, 11, 16 y 18, en horario de 18.30 a 21.00. Todas las sesiones quedan grabadas. El precio es de 650.La Cartera K⁠. Invierte en lo que no cambia.La Cartera K es la evolución lógica de El Proyecto K. Pablo y yo abrimos el taller de inversión para que los pequeños ahorradores tomaran el control de sus finanzas. El curso ha sido todo un éxito y por eso queremos ahora ofrecer la oportunidad de invertir directamente en una cartera automatizada que siga esos principios K. Lo hacemos de la mano de la plataforma de inversión inbestMe. Con el fin de proteger tu capital en estos tiempos inciertos, La Cartera K sigue una estrategia indexada de bajas comisiones con una diversificación sectorial, añadiendo oro y renta fija. Si estás interesado escríbeme a joan@elproyectok.com o abre tu cuenta en inbestMe.Patrocina Kapital. Toda la información en este link.Índice:0:32 Educación financiera del matrimonio Paramés.10:39 Conocimiento práctico austríaco.14:16 Juan de Mariana en Lanzarote y Mises en Auburn.27:16 Negocios absurdos en tiempos de tipos bajos.36:45 El ahorro como reserva de potencia.44:56 Debes cortar la cuerda como hizo Bruce Wayne.1:01:43 El estigma de Caín.1:14:49 Poner tu propósito en cuarentena.1:20:42 Misfits, rebels, troublemakers.1:30:07 Las pastillas del consumismo.1:37:14 El deseo auténtico sabe esperar.1:48:45 Cuando la opcionalidad te mata.2:00:33 La claustrofóbica vida de los políticos.Apuntes:Conciencia y felicidad. Vernon Howard.Demian. Herman Hesse.Obstinación. Herman Hesse.Siddhartha. Herman Hesse.Así habló Zarathustra. Friedrich Nietzsche.The road not taken. Robert Frost.El sótano. Thomas Bernhard.El chivo expiatorio. René Girard.Walden. Henry David Thoreau.How I got rich on the other hand. Derek Sivers.Invirtiendo a largo plazo. Francisco García Paramés.26 ideas máximas y 1 idea mínima. Francisco García Paramés.Lecciones de economía. Jesús Huerta de Soto.Dinero, crédito bancario y ciclos económicos. Jesús Huerta de Soto.La acción humana. Ludwig von Mises.Lo que se ve y lo que no se ve. Frédéric Bastiat.

A Boy's Will is Robert Frost's first full volume of poetry. Issued when Frost was approaching forty, it established his reputation and created a revolution in American poetry. With this publication, Frost became an established poet. He later became the major American poet of the twentieth century.A Boy's Will is characteristic of Frost's ability to conjure photographically clear physical images while ruminating on the complexities of the human condition, its frailties and strengths, and its temporal state, like that of his beloved New England landscape. (Summary by Becky Miller)Genre(s): PoetryLanguage: EnglishKeyword(s): literature (1959), poetry (1824)

My colleague Oliver Traldi recently published an essay called ‘Jane Austen's Virtuous Liberalism'. It's a very nice discussion of the ways in which Austen understand the challenges of character formation.Virtue, as Austen sees it, faces two tough challenges. First, people whose characters are not yet formed must see how to be virtuous rather than vicious. Then, the virtuous must somehow find a way to succeed in their struggles against the vicious without adopting vicious means.In this episode, Oliver and I discussed Austen's ideas of virtue, what that has to do with liberalism, the relationship between philosophy and literature more broadly, as well as poetry and ideas about the Great Books. We also talked about the Keira Knightly Pride and Prejudice. Yes, we both liked it. Here is why Oliver thinks Jane Austen is so popular among philosophers.TRALDI: And so I do think that even though she's not making arguments, she's not laying out philosophical theories, there is a level of precision in her thinking about virtue, which I do think is something that it took me a little aback.And I think it's part of why—one person who quote-tweeted my article was Daniel Kodsi, who's a friend of our colleague John Maier and his coauthor often. And he runs this magazine called The Philosophers' Magazine, which I had written before. And Daniel quote-tweeted my article with something like, “Add Oliver to the list of all the philosophers who love Austen.”OLIVER: And it's a long list.TRALDI: And I think it's a long list. And I do think this precision is part of it that she does, that it is—again, it's not like a philosophy journal article, but it is an intellectual sophistication that is often not present in novelists that we really appreciate.And here is an extract about Austen, Smith, and the wonderfully fertile period at the end of the eighteen century.TRALDI: But yes, I think it's obvious—without knowing the background, I'm sure there are scholarly questions about, how much Smith did Austen read? And they're both 250th—a lot was happening in 1775 and 1776.OLIVER: Those were great years. Those were the good old days.TRALDI: They were great years. In the great books syllabus, you get to the end of the 1700s and suddenly there's this—you have Smith, you have Kant, you have the American Revolution, you have the French Revolution, you have Burke. Rousseau is right before, Montesquieu is right before. I mean, it was a real—OLIVER: It's a great time.TRALDI: It was a great time. A lot was being done. And obviously, you know, I love the 1800s. I love the Romantics. But you could teach a whole great books course from 1750 to 1800, probably.OLIVER: You've also got all the dictionaries and all that kind of work going on as well. It's a very, very fertile—explorations.TRALDI: Yes, yes. There's all sorts of—yes, it was an amazing time.OLIVER: So did you, having read these two, Austen and Smith, close together—TRALDI: Yes, and I should say that my reading of Austen was much more careful than my reading of Smith.OLIVER: Sure, but you wrote this before you read Smith.TRALDI: Yes, absolutely.OLIVER: Or at least you fully conceived it. Do you see a lot of Smith in Austen?TRALDI: “A lot” might be—This was my favourite bit.TRALDI: Yes. But this is one of the great—I know we talked about this, but it's one of the great—you see this in Smith, you see this in Austen—commerce has its own virtues, and they are very traditional virtues. You have to be trustworthy. You have to be pleasant. You can't really be wholly self-interested in every moment because people have to be willing to deal with you given your—I mean, think about Yelp reviews or even just word of mouth. “Oh, that person screwed me over.”OLIVER: There's a discussion in one of Hayek's papers, which is—it's a very Smithian point he makes about, the nature of the knowledge problem means that it's not so much that I'm trying to get information about the thing you're trying to sell me, but I'm really trying to get information about you and whether you are someone I should be buying from. Which is exactly the project that the novelists and Smith—there's a sort of period between Smith and the early novelists, running through Austen to George Eliot, when they're all working on that problem together.TRALDI: Yes. I do think in Austen, it's often—the real puzzle is, how do you make out somebody else's character?OLIVER: Exactly.TRALDI: This is a phrase that Lizzy Bennet does use with regard to Darcy. And how do we actually figure out who the trustworthy and untrustworthy people are?OLIVER: And if you're too philosophical about that, in the sort of analytic sense, I think you can end up not paying enough attention to the particulars of that question.TRALDI: Yes.OLIVER: Because when you actually try and do it, it's really, really hard.TRALDI: Yes. And I think this is the sort of—reading Austen, you get a sense of—and there are very few philosophy papers on things like this. Reading Austen, you get a sense of, what sorts of details in a normal life are the ones that I can extract information from to make out somebody else's character?Oliver is an analytical, political philosopher. You can find out more about his work here. Here he is on Twitter. His Substack is orting. You can watch the episode on YouTube here.TranscriptHENRY OLIVER: Today I am talking to Oliver Traldi. Oliver is an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Toledo in Ohio. He is my colleague on the Emerging Scholars Program at the Mercatus Center, and he's written a book about political beliefs as well as many other articles for magazines, online.He's got a Substack. He's maybe the most prominent political and epistemological young philosopher of his generation. [laughter] But most importantly for us, he is interested in Jane Austen and the idea of virtue. Oliver, welcome.OLIVER TRALDI: Thank you so much for having me.Reading Austen as a PhilosopherOLIVER: Let's just start—before we get to this article you've written, tell me about being a philosopher but reading Jane Austen, because she's often read and commented on by people who are not philosophers or who are only philosophers by acquaintance or whatever.TRALDI: Right.OLIVER: Is it different reading as a philosopher, do you think?TRALDI: I think yes and no. One thing as a philosopher, there are—contemporary philosophy, we have very exacting standards of rigor and clarity. And when we look for a theory, we want something that's been improved by hundreds of people and thousands of journal articles.And so, if you were to simply extract a theory of virtue from a novel and say, “Does this—is this the end-all, be-all of moral thinking?” obviously you're going to be disappointed. So I think as a philosopher, you have to look for other types of things, other types of sensitivities rather than logical sensitivity.You have to say, how sensitive is the author to the different types of situations where people's virtue can be exhibited or challenged? Or how sensitive is the author to the different types of pressures that a character's convictions can be put under, or the different sorts of compromises that they might have to make, or the different sorts of people who might not be virtuous who they might have to interact with and sort of, you know, contract with or avoid? And what are going to be the impacts of different kinds of choices in those situations?So the novelists, I think, tend—if they do it well, a novelist who's interested in morality will understand living morally probably better than a philosopher, while maybe not understanding, say, arguments about whether morality supervenes on reality or vice versa, or what grounds morality, or different theories of meta-ethics or whatever.OLIVER: I mean, there are obviously some novelists who do have a better appreciation of those things than others, we should say.TRALDI: Yes, I think that's absolutely true. And as I wrote in my article, I do think Austen in particular had an appreciation for this issue that you might call moral disarming or unilateral disarming. You know, does the moral person put themselves at a disadvantage relative to the immoral person? And then how do we actually help—how does morality survive?So that's a kind of philosophical question, but I tend to think—I taught last year—I think we've talked about this a bit. I taught in a great books program at Tulsa.OLIVER: This is the Jennifer Frey program.TRALDI: This is the ill-fated Jennifer Frey program. Jennifer—I don't know if you've met her, but she's an incredibly charismatic person. But somehow the program, despite being enormously successful, did not survive. You know, I was there for a year, and they decided that was long enough.OLIVER: [laughs] You don't think your arrival was the—TRALDI: No, no. I hope not. I most certainly hope not.OLIVER: No. General problems of higher education prevailed. Yes.TRALDI: Yes, many, many problems of higher education these days. But yes, so I think—what was I saying?OLIVER: Well, I think we're getting to this question of, you are not just a philosopher; you teach the great books.TRALDI: Right, exactly. The great books. That's where I was. Yes.Philosophy and the Great BooksOLIVER: So, one thing I'm interested in is that, you know, reading as a philosopher, you get a slightly different perspective on Austen. When you read other fiction, poetry, whatever, is there a benefit to you as a philosopher? Does it broaden you in some way?TRALDI: Yes. I think absolutely, it's broadening, but it's also focusing in a different way. You know, contemporary philosophy is often described or captured with the word epicycles. So what we mean when we say epicycles is, you have some major theory, which is supposed to answer some big question. And then your career as a philosopher—you're like three layers deep in the theory, in some sub-debate, and you're making some really fine-grained distinctions.And if you can make those distinctions successfully, you've had a really great career. But I think it's easy to forget, why are we doing—you know, what attracted us to philosophy? Why are we doing this to begin with?And the great novels, great books in general—one example I always use is the Book of Job. It doesn't really—it's not doing clear philosophy on the question of why do bad things happen to good people. But when you read it, you feel the question, why do bad things happen to good people? You get it, you know? You get why this is a question that people have worried about for thousands of years. You get why it calls out for an answer.You know, there's a lot of truth out there. I'm looking at a set of coat hangers, and I could count the coat hangers. But if you were given the decision, would I rather have an answer to how many coat hangers are across the room from me, or why do bad things happen to good people? You'd probably go with the latter one. There's somehow some kind of depth or importance to that question, right?And I think there's—a great novelist can often generate some vividity to these questions. They can show how these questions are part of a good life, asking these questions, trying to have these questions answered—or a not-so-good life.Certainly in Austen there are a lot of characters who learn to be more virtuous. Probably Emma is the clearest example. But you might also think of Marianne Dashwood. Really—OLIVER: Lizzy Bennet.TRALDI: Lizzy Bennet really learns to be a better person. I actually think her character is rather close to Emma in a lot of ways.OLIVER: Yes, I think Emma's sort of a clear rewrite of Lizzy in some—yes, yes.TRALDI: Yes, and in some ways more evocative, actually. Yes. I mean, we can talk about all these books. But yes, I think there's these things, even—obviously qua literature, they have other virtues, right? Which much philosophy doesn't have; very little philosophy has the literary virtues.But the philosophical virtue that a lot of literature does have is you see, okay, these are the—this is what a life is like. This is what making choices is like. These are the big questions when you decide how to live your life and what kinds of choices to make.And I think Austen—these questions are all through Austen, even though nobody has to murder anybody in Austen. Nobody has to make decisions about war and peace or about, you know, civilizational decline or civilizational progress or anything like that. These people making these small choices in a lot of ways. But those are the lives that most of us lead. And when you read Austen, you think, “Oh, okay, there's a virtuous and a vicious way to lead this kind of rather normal life.”The Good LifeOLIVER: The question of what is a good life, or what is a good life in a commercial society, maybe, is the sort of bedrock of what she's doing.TRALDI: Yes, I think so. And that's why I think Austen—you know, Austen wasn't on our syllabus at Tulsa, but she was certainly discussed. And the “what is a good life” question—to me, it's the big question that a great books program for college students should always come back to.If I didn't know what else to talk about, I would just say, “Well, we just read this book.” You know, we read these old biographies of Charlemagne from, like, Einhard—Notker the Stammerer and Einhard, his adopted son or whatever. I don't remember. But this is like 800s. I'm sure you know more about this stuff than I do.And I wasn't quite sure what to do with them because what do I know about Charlemagne? So I just said, “Does it seem like Charlemagne lived a good life?” And you know, you're off to the races. And I think that's important at that age, because that's the age at which—OLIVER: For the undergraduates?TRALDI: Yes. I think that's the age at which you're starting to make your own big decisions about what sort of life to lead. And I think for me, looking back to myself at that age, I think one thing I did wrong—at Tulsa I was in some ways as much a student as a teacher. I was rereading a lot of this stuff for the first time in decades. And some of it I was reading for the first time. As I told you, I was reading a lot of Austen for the first time for this essay.OLIVER: Right, right.TRALDI: And yes, it was stuff that I had thought about at a theoretical level, you know, like what are the ins and outs of this theory or this philosophical move or something like that. But you feel the question a bit differently when you're like, “Okay, I'm an adult. I have to decide whether to live in this way or that way.”The world is open to you. You could convert to Thomism [laughter] like so many have tried to have me do, or you could become a merchant after reading The Wealth of Nations. Or you could become a revolutionary after reading Marx, or you could become a Nietzschean. You know, there are all these choices open to you.OLIVER: Please don't become a Nietzchean.TRALDI: No, no. That is, I'm a—OLIVER: Keep your children out of school if that's going to be the result. [laughs]TRALDI: Yes. I'm a committed moralist, so I cannot, but he is—he made a comeback, that's for sure.Philosophy and PoetryOLIVER: Now, there's this obviously sort of long-running question in philosophy about, what is the relationship between philosophy and poetry? Are they antagonists, or are they in some way, you know, twins, and each provides one half of what is needed for a complete way of understanding the world? Do you have a position on this?TRALDI: Yes, I mean, I think they're what the kids call twinning.OLIVER: Twinning? [laughs]TRALDI: I think they're twinning. No, no, I think that means something different. I think that means when you're wearing the same outfit or something like that.OLIVER: So we're almost twinning with our stripes—yes, I see.TRALDI: We're almost. We actually—we are stripes and blue. Yes, we're closer than I would've expected.I would say closer to twins. There are a lot of claims that philosophy is at odds somehow with this or that. There's also this—certain people will say, “Well, ever since Socrates, philosophy has been at odds with politics.” And a big part of philosophy is, how do you survive? Well, I don't know. Nobody's trying to kill me. I think of myself as a decently committed philosopher.OLIVER: It seems to me this changed fundamentally in the Enlightenment and with the Romantics, and they see it all much more joined up. It's a sort of ancient-and-modern dynamic.TRALDI: Yes, there may be an ancient-and-modern distinction there. But yes, for me I don't see any kind of contradiction. Now, there are—and I think this comes out of what I said before—philosophical attempts to understand poetry. And certain kinds of literary and aesthetic devices do sometimes fall a little flat.The philosophical literature on metaphor, for instance—I think some theories of metaphor really don't get why people use metaphors. [laughter] So one of the most important theories of metaphor is that they're all just false, that it's like everybody who uses a metaphor is lying. This isn't the full theory. There are bells and whistles added.OLIVER: Sure, sure.TRALDI: But yes, so I think there's no contradiction. But at the same time, they are different modes in some ways, and people who do the one are often trying to do something different than the other.I do think that the desire for rigor and precision and clarity that philosophers have can be a little maddening to nonphilosophers, who see the pull of philosophical questions like, “What sort of life I should lead?” and then see, what do philosophers actually do?And we're doing all this modal logic and all these truth tables and all this very technical stuff that looks like math. And they say, “That can't possibly be the right way to think about how to live.” And it's true that there are these studies of—that suggest ethicists aren't actually very good people and things like that, although you have to wonder what is the background ethical theory that went into evaluating them.So yes, I don't think there's really a contradiction between philosophy and anything else. But certainly, there was a point in my life where I always come back to trying to write poetry and do poorly and then stop. But it was always something where I would say, “Okay, if I'm doing philosophy in the afternoon, I better wait till the evening to write poetry.” You have to sort of reboot and get into a different mode.OLIVER: Iris Murdoch used to write philosophy in the morning and novels in the afternoon. That kind of thing.TRALDI: Yes, I think that's very sensible.OLIVER: And she was upstairs for the one and downstairs for the other.TRALDI: Yes. That's even better, you know?Favorite PoetsOLIVER: Which poets do you like?TRALDI: Geez, I guess for an American, I like Wallace Stevens. I wasn't expecting this question. For a Brit, you know, I actually like Philip Larkin a lot.OLIVER: Oh, yes?TRALDI: I know—what is the opinion of Larkin? Is he considered—OLIVER: Very high.TRALDI: Very high? Okay.OLIVER: Some—there are some dissenters, but basically he's the guy.TRALDI: He's the guy, okay. Yes.OLIVER: Twentieth-century English poetry is like Auden, Larkin, Betjeman.TRALDI: Yes, Auden is—actually, my friend Jane Cooper just wrote something about Auden.OLIVER: Yes, Jane is excellent.TRALDI: Yes, Jane is really great.OLIVER: That was in the New Statesman if you want to look it up.TRALDI: That was in the New Statesman. Yes, yes, yes. But Auden, I don't know quite as well.I mean, poetry is—I think it's interesting the way that we receive poetry now. I think you were talking about this a few days ago, about things like poems appearing as inspirational quotes on social media or something like that, and whoever is the most quotable. And you felt like maybe Dostoevsky is very quotable.OLIVER: Dostoevsky has a sort of screenshot quality.TRALDI: Yes, yes.OLIVER: As does Martin Amis.TRALDI: Yes. So I—OLIVER: Whereas Philip Larkin in a funny way—you know, he has very short poems. You can get the whole poem on Twitter. Like, Robert Frost has that. But something like “The Whitsun Weddings,” it's quite hard to just take three lines out. The whole thing works as a—and that, so that poem gets less—TRALDI: Yes. Which is what you would expect from a good poem, really, that it would form a kind of whole.OLIVER: Exactly. If it's a three-page ode, it should have a continuous quality.TRALDI: Yes, it should have a kind of internal structure. Yes.OLIVER: There are some one-line things and—but I think it's notable that a poet like Wordsworth doesn't seem to get a lot of social media play. And I think probably that's one reason.TRALDI: So yes, I think Larkin is somebody who, I did see some shorter references to him, and I thought I'd better just go and look up a ton of poems by this guy. And Stevens was the same way.Death and Philip LarkinOLIVER: So, which Larkin do you like?TRALDI: You're really putting me on the spot here. [laughter] It has been a little while.OLIVER: I lied to you and said it would be about Jane Austen.TRALDI: Yes, now I'm completely screwed. Well, he has a bunch about death. He has one where death is a ship following you. And he has one where death is, like, a fruit that gets picked or something.OLIVER: Apple?TRALDI: Might be an apple.OLIVER: He decides not to throw the apple.TRALDI: There's one with sweetbreads in it. And now I'm really—OLIVER: The ship one, “Next, Please”—that's excellent.TRALDI: Yes.OLIVER: He sees the—it's like hearing the music coming, and then the ship.TRALDI: I forgot that that was the title. I forgot that that was the title.OLIVER: And then as the ship goes past, it leaves nothing in its wake. It's very sort of—very gloomy.TRALDI: It's very gloomy, yes. I think I read Larkin in a gloomy phase; it was like Larkin and Radiohead or something.OLIVER: But he's a good example of what you were saying before, that he won't think propositionally. He's logical in the sense that he's sort of orderly, and he goes from one thing to the next. But he's not being a philosopher.TRALDI: No, of course. Yes.OLIVER: But he's very preoccupied with the sorts of questions that philosophers are probing, but has a sort of very meaningful treatment of them.TRALDI: Yes.OLIVER: And I think in a way, the sharp response that you want from the reader in those questions, Larkin is better at provoking than someone like Bertrand Russell or some other contemporary of his.TRALDI: Yes, yes.OLIVER: Bertrand Russell's a bit earlier, but you know what I mean.TRALDI: No, I think that's exactly right. And I think that is why I'm a fan of the great books pedagogically and not—I don't know if Larkin will be called a great, you know, like, who knows? I don't really understand that designation, but tings like poetry and novels.OLIVER: The biggest dissenter was Harold Bloom, who said Philip Larkin's just a period piece. And he doesn't understand why everyone likes him.TRALDI: Oh, yes, well, I'm not on board with everything. Oh, I've also been—OLIVER: No, you're not very Bloomian.TRALDI: I'm not very Bloomian, I don't think.OLIVER: Either Allan or Harold.TRALDI: Yes. Well, I actually—this is very embarrassing, but I've actually never read The Closing of the American Mind, which I know is—OLIVER: But why should you? I'm not sure it's retained its—TRALDI: Well, it's certainly been received into my circle. But it is like a classic of anti-ideological—OLIVER: Sure. Have you read Adler, How to Read a Book, that kind of great books stuff?TRALDI: No. There's so many things that I haven't read. I mean, I'm just learning how to read. I learned how to read in Tulsa last year, [laughter] in Oklahoma, which is not where most people would go to learn how to read.Jane Austen and the Problem of MoralityOLIVER: So let's move to Jane Austen. Your thesis basically is, many moral theories face this problem that if I believe XYZ theory and you don't believe it, you can get the advantage of me. Because I'll always stick to my principles and you can just be a bad guy.TRALDI: Yes.OLIVER: So is morality screwed? This is what people say about liberalism. This is what you're arguing. And you think Jane Austen's got an answer to that?TRALDI: Yes, I think she has a kind of answer. And again, one decision I had to make while writing the essay was, am I going to go super—this is a completely philosophically rigorous and respectable answer? Or am I just going to kind of sketch it?OLIVER: Slum it in literary criticism? [laughter]TRALDI: Yes, I wouldn't put it quite that way, but—and I think I went for the latter, where I just wanted to kind of evoke the answer. And I think the answer has something to do with living in a large enough society where—and Austen I think is not the only person to give this answer. But you live in a large enough society where, when people see you acting well and somebody else acting poorly, the disadvantage that you have in that one interaction is outweighed by the advantages you have from the society that you gain from being seen to act well by many others.So one thing I didn't mention here, but a connection I made when I was first coming up with this idea, is that it's actually a lot like what Martin Luther King Jr. says about civil disobedience. So he says, you might think, if you're out there and the police are coming at you with bats, or the white supremacists are coming at you with bats or whatever, weapons or whatever, you might think, “I'm on the losing end of this interaction.”But actually what will happen is that this interaction will be seen by many others. And you, by keeping your calm, will be seen to be the virtuous one, and they, by being violent, will be seen to be the vicious ones. And this can only help your political cause. I'm probably abstracting some of the details of King's presentation.OLIVER: In a vulgar sense, this is the sort of “be the change you want to see” approach.TRALDI: Yes, but also, be the change you want other people to see. You know? Because that's how it gets saved from—and again, one of the ways in which this is not quite philosophically rigorous is because the philosopher can say, “Well, what about an example where nobody's going to see it? Or what about an example where the situation is set up that in doing the right thing, you're perceived to have done the wrong thing?” And you get back into tough problems. And that's why we have philosophy. You know, there's always going to be these puzzles.OLIVER: But we don't get the—I think this is what the novelists are helpful for. We don't get to set the conditions in our lives. You know, when you're doing a philosophical problem, you can just say, “Well, these are the conditions. What happens then?” And what Jane Austen is so good at is saying, “I'm going to take her and drop her in this house, and that's life. And she's just going to—she won't even know what the conditions are for a long time.” That's the novelist's preoccupation.TRALDI: Yes. Yes. It's interesting what you said about not even knowing what the conditions are. It's one thing I love, which is there in, I think, a lot of Austen—and it's done by a lot of my favorite novelists. I think Kazuo Ishiguro is really good at this. It's just novels where you see the characters' growing awareness of their circumstances and—OLIVER: Like in Klara and the Sun or something.TRALDI: Yes, or I think certainly in Never Let Me Go and in Remains of the Day, a lot of the action is in a situation where you understand what's going on better than the characters do.Clues and GamesTRALDI: And I think we talked about this the other day. In Austen, Emma, for example, is this sort of, like, halfway detective where she sees a lot of clues that could help her understand the nature of the life she's leading and the circumstances she's in, but she always misinterprets the clues. But on the other hand, it's not like she misses them entirely. She's kind of on the right track, and at least she's trying.OLIVER: And what I think Austen does so well in that book—I think it's her most important book—is that by putting us, without quite realizing it, with Emma's blinkers on, as it were, and only allowing our perspective to be her perspective, she makes us the detective.But whereas in a detective novel, you know, there's a funny little man and he is a detective, and he says, “Oh, there's a clue in this novel,” the read of—on the first read very often goes straight past what they must later realize to be a clue. And that is such a normal condition of life, that, “Oh, actually, that was one of the conditions, but you couldn't have known it. Sorry.” And you can only work it out in retrospect.TRALDI: Yes. In modern love, these are sometimes called red flags. [laughter] I think it's not quite a precise analogy, but yes, I think it's right. And I certainly—I had read Emma years ago and didn't really notice. As you say, on my first read, I didn't really notice, even having watched—I think it was the, what is it, the Kate Beckinsale version maybe, from ITV in like 1996 or something.It was really in reading it for this essay that I noticed that this feature that, starting on page 30 or 40 or so, there's a—and they're often in games. The clues are often in games. So very early on, Elton is playing some sort of poem game with Emma.OLIVER: The riddles, yes.TRALDI: The riddle game. And you know, Emma already misinterprets his riddles as being about Harriet rather than about her. But then there's also—the riddles also have some relation to things that happen much later.OLIVER: Then there's the anagram game at the end.TRALDI: There's the anagram game at the end. Yes, it's the—and I don't think there are many games like that in any of the other Austen.OLIVER: People play games, but we're not taken into them and have them narrated in that way.TRALDI: And they're not word games in general. There's card games and things like that. And you know, in Pride and Prejudice, Wickham has all these gambling debts and things like that.OLIVER: Yes.TRALDI: You know, in—I don't know if you know Whit Stillman, but for the same magazine a couple years ago I wrote about Whit Stillman, who's a sort of conservative filmmaker who's a huge Austen fan and brings in Austenian themes to a lot of his movies, but writes them about characters in the 1960s and '70s. And one of them was called The Last Days of Disco, for example, about—and some of the broader social themes he talks about are also there in Austen.So one thing that was just on the edges of my consciousness as I read through the novels for this essay was the question of the noble man versus the working man, which I think is very present in Austen and has something to do with her conception of virtue: that the virtuous person will be engaging in commerce in some way.OLIVER: Those moments of the noble and the virtuous man or whatever often take place in a shop, like the drapier in Emma or the jewelry shop in Sense and Sensibility.TRALDI: That's interesting. That's interesting.OLIVER: She's very careful to take us into a commercial situation and contrast.TRALDI: See, that is the sort of detail that I think a philosopher—I think we—the mere—the vibe of, “You're in a shop, and this means something.” I think this is something philosophers are—we can watch for the action; we can judge the characters' actions. But then there are these questions of atmosphere and milieu. And certain things happen in a shop; certain things happen at the seaside. In Persuasion there's an injury by the seaside.OLIVER: Yes. That's one of the most exciting scenes in Austen. Very dramatic.TRALDI: Yes, yes. I think actually Persuasion in some ways is quite different than her other books. It has a sort of—you know, in some ways it feels a little more like Frankenstein or Wuthering Heights at points. There's a little bit of a windblown, dark quality to it at times. It's a little bit bleaker. It's a little hard to explain why, but that's just a feeling that I had reading it that maybe had changed with some of the other literary tastes of the time.Artlessness in Austen's HeroinesOLIVER: Now, the quality that you focus on in the heroines, in this question of virtue defending itself against bad actors who break the rules, is artlessness.TRALDI: Yes. So this is a term Austen uses quite a bit, and almost always, she very much picks and chooses the characters who are going to receive this term. And I thought that this is like—it's not only her artless characters who face this question about how can morality survive, or how can virtue prevail, but I think they're the limit point.Like, if you really are unwilling to use—and I mentioned in the essay, when Darcy describes—I forget what; maybe it's him describing how he found Lydia and Wickham, or it's something to do with Wickham—he said, “I had to resort to arts.” So it must be, the “arts” back then means—one of the meanings of the term is dishonesty or subterfuge or something.OLIVER: Yes, if someone was artful, it could have—TRALDI: Yes, like the Artful Dodger.OLIVER: Exactly. Could have negative connotations for sure.TRALDI: Yes. And so the artless one, you know, they're missing something.So it's the question of, if you view—morality in a way means you're missing something, right? You've taken arts out of your arsenal. You've taken tools that could deal with certain situations, and you've just decided not to use them. So the question is, how can it be an advantage to have less tools?You know, we're here at Mercatus; the economists would tell you it's never advantageous to have fewer choices, right? There's no paradox of choice. It's never advantageous to have fewer choices. And so I think this is the—if morality is a kind of unilateral disarmament, artlessness is the clearest case of that.OLIVER: And you're seeing that in Fanny Price, Elinor—TRALDI: You see that in Fanny Price. You see that in Elinor. Harriet Smith is described as artless over and over again. And then there are these other characters who are described as artful, or other things that are mentioned as arts.I think Harriet, in a lot of ways, is the one who's most often described this way. And it's interesting because you think of Emma changing a lot in Emma, but Knightley actually shifts in his evaluation of Harriet, who he thought of as sort of an unserious person. And Knightley himself comes to recognize her artlessness as a kind of seriousness which makes her a good match, not ultimately for him, but for his dude, Robert.OLIVER: The farmer.TRALDI: The farmer, yes.OLIVER: He doesn't change his view of her social position, though.TRALDI: No, certainly not. But he does change his view of her character, basically. You know, her artlessness is not silliness. It has a sort of depth to it.And yes, certainly Fanny. In the Whit Stillman movie Metropolitan that's part of what set me on this, there's this whole discussion of the book Mansfield Park and this old Lionel Trilling essay about it where he says, how is it—there's this question about how modern people can even like Mansfield Park because we've sort of lost the notion of virtue being exciting or something.One of the most provocative lines to me in Austen was in Sense and Sensibility where it says that Elinor glories in Edward's integrity, which is an odd thing to glory in. You don't glory—nobody is on Instagram showing off their integrity, you know?OLIVER: It's like that René Gerard quote people like to pass around: “Everyone is on diet pills and nobody wants to be a saint.”TRALDI: I like that. That is very Instagrammable.OLIVER: Exactly. Exactly.TRALDI: That's very good, actually. I like that. Yes, so there's something provocative about the notion that virtue can be exciting, and in particular can be romantically exciting.The Importance of IntegrityOLIVER: Or even less than that. One thing I think is difficult for people interpreting Austen today is that virtue, whether it's exciting or romantically exciting, or the notion of integrity is of interest for its own sake.There's a lot of—you know, we have integrity as an organization. It's very important for me to have integrity as a professional. But there's not as much a sense of, just having integrity is the good life. We don't need to be complicated about this. That's just—you should just do that. And Austen's very firm on that all the way through.And criticism wants to pull her towards sometimes feminism, sometimes discussions of slavery, sometimes various other things. And she's just constantly sort of resisting that by saying, “I like integrity. I like good people. I don't think it's that hard.” It's a good line you've picked up on, I think.TRALDI: There's a character in The Wire who says, “A man's gotta have a code.” I think he's Omar, who murders the drug dealers and steals from them.OLIVER: I haven't seen it.TRALDI: So he says, “A man's gotta have a code.” And I think there is a—even in a character who in some ways is bad, we admire the integrity of having a code and sticking to it.There is this debate, I guess in moral philosophy, or at least on the outskirts of moral philosophy, about, “Well, if your code is wrong, maybe it's better not to stick to it.” I don't share that perspective. I think part of the good life is holding yourself to certain standards. And if those standards turn out to be wrong, the holding yourself is still of moral value, right? Not allowing yourself—OLIVER: It doesn't mean they're not adjustable.TRALDI: Yes, no, of course. If you decide the standards are wrong, and in Austen—OLIVER: It's sort of implicit in the idea of having standards that you will be honest and therefore accept when your standards need to be improved or whatever. Right?TRALDI: Yes, I think that's absolutely right. And in Austen we certainly see people shifting their standards. And I think one thing that I—of course, modern readers and watchers of Austen do not quite understand some of these things. But I think in Pride and Prejudice in particular, we're supposed to feel that Lizzy Bennet is quite hard on people and has to learn to improve herself in that way.OLIVER: We're delighted with her when she does that because we think it's sassy.TRALDI: Yes, exactly. If you go on YouTube, you can see all these, like, “Lizzy Bennet owning people's lives for 50 minutes,” these compilations of clips from the various movies or whatever. And she's obviously very, very clever.But she realizes—after coming to understand who Wickham is and feeling that she might not have another chance with Darcy, she comes to realize that she has had certain prejudices, which have made her blind to the realities of the world and blind to what might be her best options.So yes, I was saying I believe in integrity; that's all I was saying. And integrity obviously is adjustable, but I tend to think that it's better—even if the rule is wrong, it's better for the person who has it to hold themselves to it, rather than to adjust to try to get an advantage.And in philosophy, we have all sorts of terminology for these sorts of questions: “Are you an internalist or an externalist about reasons or about rules or whatever?” I think the more literary way to say it would just be that integrity is a virtue. And people should stick to their codes unless they see a good reason to change them.Austen and Adam SmithOLIVER: Now, you have recently been reading Adam Smith.TRALDI: Yes, I did read a lot of Adam Smith for this debate we had last week. Although I did a poor job because I had forgotten that the debate was about whether Smith was a philosopher or an economist. [laughter] I thought it was simply, is he a philosopher or not? So I put myself in the odd position of arguing that Adam Smith is not an economist.But yes, I think it's obvious—without knowing the background, I'm sure there are scholarly questions about, how much Smith did Austen read? And they're both 250th—a lot was happening in 1775 and 1776.OLIVER: Those were great years. Those were the good old days.TRALDI: They were great years. In the great books syllabus, you get to the end of the 1700s and suddenly there's this—you have Smith, you have Kant, you have the American Revolution, you have the French Revolution, you have Burke. Rousseau is right before, Montesquieu is right before. I mean, it was a real—OLIVER: It's a great time.TRALDI: It was a great time. A lot was being done. And obviously, you know, I love the 1800s. I love the Romantics. But you could teach a whole great books course from 1750 to 1800, probably.OLIVER: You've also got all the dictionaries and all that kind of work going on as well. It's a very, very fertile—explorations.TRALDI: Yes, yes. There's all sorts of—yes, it was an amazing time.OLIVER: So did you, having read these two, Austen and Smith, close together—TRALDI: Yes, and I should say that my reading of Austen was much more careful than my reading of Smith.OLIVER: Sure, but you wrote this before you read Smith.TRALDI: Yes, absolutely.OLIVER: Or at least you fully conceived it. Do you see a lot of Smith in Austen?TRALDI: “A lot” might be—OLIVER: Primarily from Theory of Moral Sentiments.TRALDI: So I would say that the notion of sympathy as being fundamentally part of how you recognize a good person seems to me to be there in Austen. The characters are—OLIVER: And this is the thing about awareness of other people and learning from that awareness.TRALDI: Awareness of other people and learning from other people and feeling other people's emotions. One thing that is related to sympathy in an odd way—and I think actually Austen and Smith conceive of it a bit differently, but that is there for both of them, in particular in Sense and Sensibility—is this notion of self-control or self-command.OLIVER: Self command. Yes. Yes.The Importance of Self-CommandTRALDI: Now, Smith gives a really odd argument about self command, which is that if you don't have control over your emotions, you will end up feeling or expressing something that other people can't sympathize with. And this is bad because sympathy is good, or something like that. I actually think it's a rather confused argument.OLIVER: I think what he's saying is that if you display a lack of self-command, then no matter what you are feeling, people find it difficult to deal with that sort of uncontrolled behavior. It's not the particular expression of feeling; it's the fact that you are a little unstable or—TRALDI: Yes, I think that's right.OLIVER: —a bit extra.TRALDI: I think what Smith doesn't do is explain quite how that's bad. But what I think is that actually, in Sense and Sensibility, it's a little bit the reverse, where actually Elinor and their mother, they do sympathize with Marianne. They do feel what she's feeling after—who's the other, the w guy in Sense and Sensibility? They're all w's.OLIVER: Oh, Willoughby.TRALDI: Willoughby, right, right. Not Wickham, Willoughby. When Willoughby—OLIVER: You can just say “the cad.”TRALDI: The cad. There's always a cad. So when the cad leaves, Marianne has all these emotions, and you really feel them. And Marianne also has a lack of self-command when Willoughby is there. There's this whole episode, which I didn't quite make the most of but felt very important, where they go to the house of this woman. They just sort of barge into this house, Willoughby and Marianne.And this is really supposed to show something about the relationship. If you and your partner barge into somebody's house, it can't be a good relationship somehow because it's leading you into bad actions. That's my sense of what that episode is supposed to show from the highest possible remove.OLIVER: I think, yes, and I think there are several other instances of that: when they ride in the carriage together, unaccompanied.TRALDI: Right, right.OLIVER: And there's a sort of general consternation about this. And Marianne sort of says, “Oh, well, how can it be a problem?” And they—part of the consternation is, you're breaking the rules in a very flagrant way, but also that you are assuming that it's okay because you'll get married. And this assumption is a very big one.TRALDI: Yes. And obviously there is this assumption that—she doesn't recognize quite how—she thinks her position is much more secure than it actually is, which is how it turns out in the book. But I think we're supposed to think that even if she were right about Willoughby's affection, which in a sense, she—Willoughby—OLIVER: No. Even if they do get married, she's broken the rules in a way that—TRALDI: She's broken certain rules in a way that is—but I think what's different from Smith is, there is sympathy from her family even though she lacks self-command. But that is precisely—so it's sort of a different theory of why self-command is good. It's precisely because her emotional state is actually draining for her family.And then Elinor says—when she learns that Elinor has actually been going through something—OLIVER: The same.TRALDI: —very similar, and maybe even rougher, in this whole thing with Lucy Steele telling her about this, you know, blah, blah, blah.OLIVER: Which is a beautiful name—to steal. I mean, it's great.TRALDI: It's an amazing—honestly, in some ways Sense and Sensibility may have been my favorite. I think it's just lovely.OLIVER: If I just wanted to just read one for fun, that's what I go to. I do, yes.TRALDI: Yes. And there's a lot—none of these things are quite perfectly in there. But I think honestly, everything that's in the other novels has a little part to play in Sense and Sensibility. You know, I think if I were to recommend just one, if somebody was like, “I have time for just one,” I might recommend Sense and Sensibility.But in the end, Marianne says—again, it's one of these amazingly evocative lines. Elinor says, “You didn't act that badly. Do you compare your conduct with Willoughby's?” And she says, “No, I compare it with—Elinor, I compare it with your conduct. You have this self-command.”And it's precisely the fact—it's not—and I think this is why philosophers do like Austen, because it's not—it's still literary, but there is a precision to her moral evaluations. It's precisely the fact that Elinor knew that her family loved her and didn't want to burden—it's all quite conscious. She didn't want to burden her family with her emotions. But you actually see that Elinor has this family trait of having very strong sentiment, which Marianne does, and simply also has this virtue of self-command.And that is—there are film adaptations and TV adaptations that demonstrate self-command, but it's a very hard thing to film. It's something you feel inside. It's a very hard—the actors have to be very good for you to see—you see pieces of it in some of the adaptations of Persuasion and some of the adaptations of Sense and Sensibility, but self-command is very hard to find.Austen AdaptationsOLIVER: Which adaptations do you like the best?TRALDI: I'm forgetting—I often like the long ones that I think were for the British ITV. So I like the—I think Kate Beckinsale was in the Emma one. Although I think there was one of Persuasion, which was also quite good. I like the one of Northanger Abbey. I don't think it's that good, but it's kind of cute, which I think it's probably the cutest of her long novels.Whit Stillman did a very loose adaptation of Lady Susan, which is hilariously funny at times, and also has Kate Beckinsale and some other great actors in it.OLIVER: Did you see the new Persuasion on Netflix a couple of years ago?TRALDI: No. No.OLIVER: It has that—is it Dakota Johnson, the actress, who's famous for other non-Austenian—Fifty Shades of Grey or whatever.TRALDI: Yes, and isn't she one of the Avengers or something like that?OLIVER: Something like that. But everyone was very upset that it was this terrible adaptation.TRALDI: Oh, yes.OLIVER: Didn't—it sort of killed all of Austen's words. She looks at the camera; she drinks from the bottle. I actually thought it was quite fun. On the basis that all adaptations are bad—TRALDI: I think if you allow some looseness, it can be quite fun. So for example, the 2005 Pride and Prejudice, I think if you're just sort of like, “Well, this is just somebody who was inspired by Pride and Prejudice,” you can have a lot of fun with the movie.OLIVER: I think as an interpretation of the book, that film is quite bad.TRALDI: Oh, yes. I think it's absolutely missing the mark.OLIVER: But in terms of like, the countryside and the house and the geese and the food, it's fantastic.TRALDI: Oh, yes. It's lovely to look at.OLIVER: The dresses, right? The clothes are amazing.TRALDI: And a lot of the—and the cast is honestly like—OLIVER: Yes, it's great.TRALDI: The cast is really, really great. And the parts as they are—OLIVER: Rosamund Pike is maybe the best Jane on TV.TRALDI: She's terrific. And who's the one who plays Kitty?OLIVER: Yes.TRALDI: Who is in—and the father is the guy from The Hunger Games. I forget his name, but I think the father is excellent in that. But of course, it's not exactly the father from Austen.OLIVER: No, no, no.TRALDI: But as a movie itself—but yes, I like a lot of these longer TV versions.One odd thing—they make these choices. So there is some scholarly apparatus brought to bear on some of them. So I think maybe it's Persuasion that there were multiple versions of, and some of the adaptations use pieces from the unpublished version, which are interesting. And as I was reading it, I had to Google around a bit and figure out these things.Austen's Moral PrecisionTRALDI: I was going to say about Austen's moral precision, the other place where I think this comes in—and I wrote a bit about this in the essay—is near the end of Mansfield Park, when—the names are what I'm worst at—when Edmund, right, is finally disillusioned with—OLIVER: Mary.TRALDI: With Mary Crawford?OLIVER: Mm-hmm.TRALDI: It's because there was this affair. There's always a sibling or a cousin who makes some horrible mistake, you know? So there was this affair, and Mary Crawford can only criticize it by saying that they weren't very prudent, you know, in prudential terms. They took a big risk. They made a bad decision. You know, they really screwed themselves over.OLIVER: They could have made it work. Yes.TRALDI: Yes. And Edmund realizes that she lacks moral fervor because he thinks the appropriate criticism should be a moral one. And as a psychological matter, it shouldn't even enter your head, I think is the idea. I'm extrapolating a bit, but if you see somebody acting this badly, to then say, “Well, geez, you're doing something that isn't in your interest”—for that to be your first thought indicates that your priorities are highly misplaced in a way that, to him, is quite unattractive.And this also struck me as a moment of—this is something we philosophers talk about. What is the distinction between prudence and morality? They both tell you what you should do, in some sense, but there's different—the shoulds have different forces, right? So Edmund has a certain moral precision and sensitivity which, actually, Fanny is basically the only person he knows—not that everybody in the house is a bad person; his father is a decent guy, and one of the aunts is okay, I think.But yes, there's a real sophistication to this evaluation. And it's funny to me that she actually used this as the—I mean, I suspect that even at the time there were readers who were just like, “Wait, I really don't get what the nature of Edmund's problem is here,” because it's not like Mary—Mary's not like, “Oh, yes, I support infidelity.” You know? She's not like— it's if you blinked, you might miss it, the mistake that Mary has made.And so I do think that even though she's not making arguments, she's not laying out philosophical theories, there is a level of precision in her thinking about virtue, which I do think is something that it took me a little aback.And I think it's part of why—one person who quote-tweeted my article was Daniel Kodsi, who's a friend of our colleague John Maier and his coauthor often. And he runs this magazine called The Philosophers' Magazine, which I had written before. And Daniel quote-tweeted my article with something like, “Add Oliver to the list of all the philosophers who love Austen.”OLIVER: And it's a long list.TRALDI: And I think it's a long list. And I do think this precision is part of it that she does, that it is—again, it's not like a philosophy journal article, but it is an intellectual sophistication that is often not present in novelists that we really appreciate.Every Word MattersOLIVER: I mean, one way people talk about the great books is to say that every word matters. And a lot of novelists will say that about their own. Well, you know, Elizabeth Bowen used to say, “What you're doing is to make everything count.” Austen is one of the examples where it's actually true. Every word is being used carefully.TRALDI: Yes. It's funny, this bears on another Twitter argument I had recently about this phrase logographic necessity. Basically, every word in a great book is there for a reason. I think that's right. Although you have to be careful about—if you were to say, “Well, every word in Plato is there for a reason, so you can't really say he's wrong about every—” you would be kind of abandoning the philosophical mission.OLIVER: I mean it in the sense of what you might call the artistic or structural integrity of the book. Not everything has to tell in the meaning sense. But it all holds as a unit for some—TRALDI: Yes. I think everything is there—there is what we could call an internal reason for everything to be there. Everything is there to hold together—OLIVER: Like the making of a piece of furniture or something.TRALDI: And I think you hear—I think this is one thing that—and not all classical music, but I think it's one thing that distinguishes classical music even from very good contemporary pop music or jazz or rock music, is that you have this sense of, “Yes, every note I hear basically is holding up a larger structure of some sort.”OLIVER: Yes. And Jane Austen is very Mozart in that way.TRALDI: Yes, I think that's right. Yes.Austen's Place in Great Books ProgramsOLIVER: So should Jane Austen have a bigger place on great books programs, based on all these things you've said about her?TRALDI: Yes, this is—so, there was actually a debate—I did not write the piece in response to this debate, but this is—OLIVER: Tanner Greer.TRALDI: Yes, there was—Tanner Greer weighed in on this, and my friend Circe. I think—OLIVER: I think they're just desperately wrong.TRALDI: You think they don't—that she—OLIVER: I think Emma is obviously a book that should be on one of these syllabuses. Maybe Sense and Sensibility.TRALDI: Yes. I think the ones I would consider are Emma, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park. I do think they're actually longer than I realized, which is always—I mean, there are these very practical concerns with putting together a syllabus.OLIVER: Sure, sure. Although I want to ask you about that, because my response to a lot of these debates, which is maybe just because of where I studied, but just make them read more. And if they don't do the reading, that's their, you know—TRALDI: That's true. Well, I don't want to get into this too much. We already make them read a lot compared to—so for example, a year ago, I had my students read two novels in a week, which is more than most courses make college students read.OLIVER: But that's by no means unreasonable.TRALDI: No, no, of course, of course.OLIVER: You know.TRALDI: Well, exigencies of the teenage mind aside—OLIVER: Because I often think this, when people debate how things should be taught and why it's so important to keep these programs, and they'll talk about the importance of writing essays. And then it turns out the students maybe write one essay a semester. And I sort of think, well, who cares? All this rhetoric for one essay.TRALDI: Yes. I don't know if I'm really ever going to assign essays again. It just is—the age of AI is upon us.OLIVER: Sure. But you see what I mean.TRALDI: No, yes, I know exactly what you mean. And I do think reading a lot is the main part of—and certainly, you know, when I read all seven of these in two weeks, that's much more reading than I normally do, as well, to write this essay.OLIVER: But you didn't have to lie on the sofa afterwards with a cold compress. You were fine.TRALDI: In a way it was a really good two weeks. If you get to read—I mean, this is why we have good lives, right? If you get to read Jane Austen and you call that work, it's a nice life.OLIVER: So yes, will you be putting Emma on your program?TRALDI: I would definitely consider Emma. I would definitely consider Sense and Sensibility. I would consider Mansfield Park. I think these are the ones that have—the moral element is very prominent. But it's obviously there in all of her books.OLIVER: You can have a really good moral discussion about Mansfield Park, which is a bigger, broader thing than Pride and Prejudice, for example.TRALDI: Yes, I think so. I would definitely consider—in the 1800s there were—obviously the British novel of the 1800s was a big deal, and there's—OLIVER: [laughs] We did quite well, yes.TRALDI: You all did quite well. So the ones we did at Tulsa—we had Frankenstein and Wuthering Heights and The Picture of Dorian Gray. And then we had one Irish, The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. And I don't think anybody—if you replaced one of those with Emma or Mansfield Park, I don't think anybody would say, “Oh, you made a horrible call.”OLIVER: I think Tanner's point was that you simply don't have that many slots for an English novel that deals with these sorts of ideas, and that it should obviously be Middlemarch because that is the bigger novel. It's about bigger questions of society. It's about the whole—it's got more greatness in it, whereas Austen is sort of more about the individual.TRALDI: So I do think that this question of greatness—I think there are some people who read Austen and they think, “Well, this is—obviously it has all these sorts of themes, but it's not great. It has this littleness to it. It has this smallness to it.”OLIVER: It's domestic.TRALDI: That is not my reading of it. I think if that's the question, I don't feel that way. I think it pulls out these great themes about the nature of virtue and the nature of moral learning, becoming a better person, the nature of love. We read Sappho. We read the Symposium.To me, you read Wuthering Heights and you say, “Oh, this is a really big book because it's about society and how trauma gets passed down, and it has these horror elements, and it's very dark.” But actually, it's quite hard to figure out, how do we turn Wuthering Heights in a discussion about how to live? With Austen, it's just completely straightforward.OLIVER: [laughs] How not to live, maybe.TRALDI: Yes. In Austen, it's just completely straightforward. This is the discussion. This is what she had in mind as well, this question of how to live. So to me, Austen is completely—in terms of her successes as an artist, she belongs. In terms of her themes, she belongs. So I would not rule her out. I think she is absolutely a great, and who knows what that means, but I think she would be completely appropriate on any of these syllabi.Reading PlansOLIVER: Very good. And what will you read next?TRALDI: What will I read next? I mean, our—from the beginning, I'm thinking I should read some more poetry. It's been a while. Actually, speaking of—this is funny. Well, I want to get into William Empson. He had an odd life, which I think somebody should do like a movie about him or something.OLIVER: Yes, he'd make a great movie.TRALDI: I think Empson would be a good movie. So that might be—OLIVER: Are you going to read the poems or the criticism?TRALDI: Probably a little of both, but that's for a while from now. I think, you know, at the moment I'm back to reading philosophy. So what novel will I read next? That's a good question. What should I read next?OLIVER: If you like Jane Austen?TRALDI: Yes.OLIVER: Maybe read one of the people that she admired, like Samuel Richardson or Fanny Burney, someone like that.TRALDI: You know, I do think—you saying Samuel Richardson reminded me, I've read very little Samuel Johnson. I think reading some of the great critics, I think, writing this piece—OLIVER: Oh, Johnson, yes. You would like Johnson.TRALDI: I think I would like Johnson. I think I would like Empson. The history of literary criticism is something I have very, very little idea of.OLIVER: Oh, well, then, Johnson. I mean, he's the best.TRALDI: Yes, I think I should, I should definitely read Johnson.OLIVER: English literary criticism begins and ends with Samuel Johnson.TRALDI: You know what, this is a little different, but—I might have talked about this with you a little bit—I want to read The Fable of the Bees, Mandeville, because reading about Smith—a lot of the ideas that we think of as Smithian are actually Mandevillian, and he kind of moderated them.OLIVER: Well, he hated Mandeville.TRALDI: Yes.OLIVER: Very hard on him.TRALDI: Yes. So a lot—like the invisible hand, it's only a small part of Smith's thinking, but it was like the entirety of Mandeville's thinking, this sort of dynamic.OLIVER: Well, I think it means different things for them. I think Mandeville, in a funny way, is more philosophical in the sense you were saying, and trying to make these propositions. And Smith was saying, “Well, what about feelings? What about all these funny things that we can't account for? Like, look around. It's too messy.”TRALDI: No, that makes sense to me. Yes, I think between Mandeville and Smith, Mandeville is somebody who thought virtue was sort of like a con.OLIVER: A fool's game.TRALDI: Exactly. You're sort of a sucker if you try to be virtuous.OLIVER: I think he also just assumed that if you were commercial, you were obviously on the get.TRALDI: Yes. But this is one of the great—I know we talked about this, but it's one of the great—you see this in Smith, you see this in Austen—commerce has its own virtues, and they are very traditional virtues. You have to be trustworthy. You have to be pleasant. You can't really be wholly self-interested in every moment because people have to be willing to deal with you given your—I mean, think about Yelp reviews or even just word of mouth. “Oh, that person screwed me over.”OLIVER: There's a discussion in one of Hayek's papers, which is—it's a very Smithian point he makes about, the nature of the knowledge problem means that it's not so much that I'm trying to get information about the thing you're trying to sell me, but I'm really trying to get information about you and whether you are someone I should be buying from. Which is exactly the project that the novelists and Smith—there's a sort of period between Smith and the early novelists, running through Austen to George Eliot, when they're all working on that problem together.TRALDI: Yes. I do think in Austen, it's often—the real puzzle is, how do you make out somebody else's character?OLIVER: Exactly.TRALDI: This is a phrase that Lizzy Bennet does use with regard to Darcy. And how do we actually figure out who the trustworthy and untrustworthy people are?OLIVER: And if you're too philosophical about that, in the sort of analytic sense, I think you can end up not paying enough attention to the particulars of that question.TRALDI: Yes.OLIVER: Because when you actually try and do it, it's really, really hard.TRALDI: Yes. And I think this is the sort of—reading Austen, you get a sense of—and there are very few philosophy papers on things like this. Reading Austen, you get a sense of, what sorts of details in a normal life are the ones that I can extract information from to make out somebody else's character?In philosophy, we do ask, what is a good character and what is the good action in this sort of situation? What is the bad action in this sort of situation? But it's not for the philosopher to say, “Okay, in the sorts of situations you're likely to be in, what do you pay—where do you direct your attention to try to figure out these things about?”And it's not—I don't think Austen—it's not super subtle either. In Persuasion—I mentioned in the essay—in Persuasion, it starts out by saying Anne really cared about paying off the family's debts, and the rest of her family didn't give a s**t, you know? And it's sort of like, okay, so we just immediately are like, Anne's the sort of person who you might want to have a business transaction with because if she has a debt to you, she might actually pay it. And I forget if that's the exact detail, but it's something like that, you know?OLIVER: And there's also the novelist—Jane Austen is very good at what you don't see, which aga

The very first episode of The Difficulty. A 50-year-old paperweight on my father's desk turned out to be a line from a 1900 Irish play, and the seed of this show. What you're getting on Mondays vs. Thursdays, what's launching this week at crossroadspublishing.group, the founding-and-selling of C&R Press, the Terminus Magazine “just make it real” lesson, and the $4,000 bestseller campaign I almost said yes to two days ago.00:00 Welcome — we're not about perfectionism, we're about idealizing03:00 The motto: the difficulty in life is the choice04:30 Origin of the quote — my father's rock paperweight, George Moore, 190008:00 What this show is NOT (and is)11:30 The free Difficulty Field Guide12:30 What's launching this week: the show, the site, IF/THEN Books, Iris #117:00 Crossroads Publishing services — for writers with a body of work20:00 Who I am — PhD, ICF coach, Enneagram, C&R Press 1996-2015, 50+ books24:00 Making it real imperfectly — the Terminus Magazine origin story30:00 Who this show is for33:00 The $4,000 Brody bestseller campaign and $2,000 Cohen Groundbreakers38:00 The in-between is the hard part — the real difficulty isn't the choice42:00 What's coming Thursday: how to stop believing your stuff is specialThe Difficulty Field Guide (free PDF — eight difficulties every creative life faces)Iris Blackwood and the Curse of Hemlock Island (launching Tuesday May 5, with freeDecision Tree map and educator's reading guide)Crossroads Publishing Group — IF/THEN Books, Crossroads Press services, free resources.Subscribe to The Descent (the show's hub):YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@chadprevostwriterPersonal site: https://chadprevost.comMentioned in this episode:- George Moore, The Bending of the Bough (1900) — the source quote- C&R Press (founded 2006, sold 2015)- Terminus Magazine (Atlanta literary magazine origin story)- Game Time Books — earlier interactive-fiction venture- Dave Chesson / Kindlepreneur — Publisher Rocket- Paul G. Brody / Brody Consulting — bestseller campaign service- Bryan Cohen / Best Page Forward — Groundbreakers community- Robert Frost — “the road less traveled” Get full access to The Descent at chadprevost.substack.com/subscribe

When you subscribed to this podcast, I bet you thought, “When is Sarah going to interview an expert on theoretical physics ?” Today is your day!My guest is Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein author of the book The Edge of Space-Time: Particles, Poetry, and the Cosmic Dream Boogie.And if you're thinking, I was really bad at physics – don't worry, so was I. I found this book to be both incredibly engaging and just the right amount of challenging. Dr. Prescod-Weinstein is going to explain space-time, and how theoretical physics, Black feminist theory, Robert Frost, and the cosmos are all connected.If you held your breath during the liftoff of Artemis II, and were crying when they splashed down safety, not to worry – so was I. I was extremely excited to interview Dr. Prescod-Weinstein, and the timing is perfect. We are in good hands....Support for this episode comes from The Awkward Agenda by Beth Morton, an open-door romance featuring friends-to-lovers, found family, and pirate cosplay, available now digitally in Kindle Unlimited, and in print from retailers everywhere. ...You can find Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein'sPersonal website: http://chanda.scienceNewsletter: http://news.chanda.scienceInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/chanda.prescod.weinstein/Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/chanda.bsky.socialYou can find the abstract for her work, “The Cosmos is a Black Aesthetic” at Duke University Press.We also mentioned NASA's image collection. ...Music: purple-planet.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When you subscribed to this podcast, I bet you thought, “When is Sarah going to interview an expert on theoretical physics ?” Today is your day!My guest is Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein author of the book The Edge of Space-Time: Particles, Poetry, and the Cosmic Dream Boogie.And if you're thinking, I was really bad at physics – don't worry, so was I. I found this book to be both incredibly engaging and just the right amount of challenging. Dr. Prescod-Weinstein is going to explain space-time, and how theoretical physics, Black feminist theory, Robert Frost, and the cosmos are all connected.If you held your breath during the liftoff of Artemis II, and were crying when they splashed down safety, not to worry – so was I. I was extremely excited to interview Dr. Prescod-Weinstein, and the timing is perfect. We are in good hands....Support for this episode comes from The Awkward Agenda by Beth Morton, an open-door romance featuring friends-to-lovers, found family, and pirate cosplay, available now digitally in Kindle Unlimited, and in print from retailers everywhere. ...You can find Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein'sPersonal website: http://chanda.scienceNewsletter: http://news.chanda.scienceInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/chanda.prescod.weinstein/Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/chanda.bsky.socialYou can find the abstract for her work, “The Cosmos is a Black Aesthetic” at Duke University Press.We also mentioned NASA's image collection. ...Music: purple-planet.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"Smart lad, to slip betimes away/From fields where glory does not stay..."This line indicates one of the key themes in the poem "To an Athlete Dying Young" by A.E. Housman. With this being National Poetry Month, I am reading and talking about poems that I find particularly powerful, inspirational, and meaningful, so today I am talking about this poem. Monday, I started with "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost, and Wednesday, I talked about "If" by Rudyard Kipling. I said that you've probably heard both of those poems before, and you may have read them in your English/Language Arts class when you were in school. While not as popular as the other two, I imagine "To an Athlete Dying Young" may be another poem you read in school, too.As always, I am so grateful to all of you who support the podcast! I do this show because of you. While I enjoy the quotes myself, I do this podcast because many of you who are looking for inspiration and impact from these quotes come back and listen to it on a consistent basis. Thanks to all of you for being a huge part of this journey! In order to help me keep this journey going, please consider becoming a supporter of the show. You can donate to the show by clicking on the link below.Support the showFor more information to help you on your road to becoming your best, check us out at SlamDunkSuccess.com or email me at scott@slamdunksuccess.com.Our new background music, starting with Episode 300, is "Pulse of Time - Corporate Rock" by TunePocket.Our background music for the first 5 years of the podcast was "Dance in the Sun" by Krisztian Vass.

Cody and Rich sit around the proverbial campfire and share some excellent poems. Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost Something Gold Has Come by Cody Adams

"If you can keep your head when all about you/Are losing theirs and blaming it on you..."These lines begin the poem "If" by Rudyard Kipling. The entire poem is a series of "if" lines and concepts, all talking about the many trials and tribulations we will be faced with as we go through life, and culminating in two lines to show what is waiting for us if we handle all of the "ifs" in the right way. There are so many great quotable lines and lessons for leaders and teammates throughout this poem, many of which you may have used with your teams before.With this being National Poetry Month, I am reading and talking about poems that I find particularly powerful, inspirational, and meaningful. Monday, I started with my favorite poet, Robert Frost, and what is probably his most famous poem, "The Road Not Taken." I said that you have probably heard it before, and you may have read it in your English/Language Arts class when you were in school. I imagine "If" falls into that category, too.As always, I am so grateful to all of you who support the podcast! I do this show because of you. While I enjoy the quotes myself, I do this podcast because many of you who are looking for inspiration and impact from these quotes come back and listen to it on a consistent basis. Thanks to all of you for being a huge part of this journey! In order to help me keep this journey going, please consider becoming a supporter of the show. You can donate to the show by clicking on the link below.Support the showFor more information to help you on your road to becoming your best, check us out at SlamDunkSuccess.com or email me at scott@slamdunksuccess.com.Our new background music, starting with Episode 300, is "Pulse of Time - Corporate Rock" by TunePocket.Our background music for the first 5 years of the podcast was "Dance in the Sun" by Krisztian Vass.

"Two roads diverged in a wood..."We move to a new theme today, one that is based on this being National Poetry Month. I am going to read and talk about poems that I find particularly powerful, inspirational, and meaningful. I will do this for this week and probably for the rest of the month.I start with my favorite poet, Robert Frost, and what is probably his most famous poem, "The Road Not Taken." It is so good with so many great ideas in it. You have probably heard it before, and you may have read it in your English/Language Arts class when you were in school.As always, I am so grateful to all of you who support the podcast! I do this show because of you. While I enjoy the quotes myself, I do this podcast because many of you who are looking for inspiration and impact from these quotes come back and listen to it on a consistent basis. Thanks to all of you for being a huge part of this journey! In order to help me keep this journey going, please consider becoming a supporter of the show. You can donate to the show by clicking on the link below.Support the showFor more information to help you on your road to becoming your best, check us out at SlamDunkSuccess.com or email me at scott@slamdunksuccess.com.Our new background music, starting with Episode 300, is "Pulse of Time - Corporate Rock" by TunePocket.Our background music for the first 5 years of the podcast was "Dance in the Sun" by Krisztian Vass.

In this Poetry Corner episode of LAB the Podcast, we slow down with Poet and Conservatory Artist Wendy Kieffer to explore the work of Robert Frost.Together, we step into two of Frost's most iconic poems, “Fire and Ice” and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” unpacking how something so brief can hold such depth. From desire and hate… to rest, responsibility, and the quiet pull of the “lovely, dark, and deep,” this conversation invites us to reflect on what's happening within our own hearts. Frost reminds us that poetry doesn't just inform, it awakens. It helps us remember what it would impoverish us to forget. And in a world constantly pulling for our attention, this episode is an invitation to pause, listen, and rediscover the beauty of reflection.Support / Sponsor LAB the Podcast: https://vuvivo.com/supportFor More Videos, Subscribe:  @VUVIVOV3 | https://www.youtube.com/@VUVIVOV3Follow: @labthepodcast | @vuvivo_v3 | @zachjelliott | @wendy.kiefferLike:  https://www.facebook.com/vuvivo.v3Order Alchemy of Praise: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1944470220?ref=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_dp_3NCER8Y41NXPRQ5QE469&ref_=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_dp_3NCER8Y41NXPRQ5QE469&social_share=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_dp_3NCER8Y41NXPRQ5QE469&skipTwisterOG=2#vuvivo #v3 #LABthePodcast #PoetryCorner #RobertFrost #FireAndIce #StoppingByWoods #Poetry #FaithAndArt #Beauty #WendyKiefferSupport the show

This episode is part of a five-part miniseries examining James Madison's role in the American Revolution and the founding of the United States. Part of Montpelier's commemoration of the 250th anniversary of American independence, this series is funded by a grant from the Virginia American Revolution 250 Commission in partnership with Virginia Humanities.What does it actually take to sustain a republic — not just to build one, but to keep it alive across generations? In this episode, part of a special five-part miniseries commemorating America's 250th anniversary, Dr. Katie Crawford-Lackey speaks with Professor Colleen Sheehan of Arizona State University, one of the foremost scholars of James Madison's political thought. Drawing on her books The Mind of James Madison and James Madison and the Spirit of Republican Self-Government, Professor Sheehan explains why Madison believed the greatest threat to the republic wasn't foreign invasion or economic collapse, but something far more internal — the capacity of citizens to deliberate well, check their own impulses, and honor what Madison called a "debt of protection" we owe to one another. From the Federalist Papers to Robert Frost, this conversation illuminates why Madison remains essential to understanding what self-government actually demands of us — and what the 250th anniversary asks of us today.

Librarians Katie and Desirae talk about books in verse just in time for poetry month! Books mentioned: Love That Dog by Sharon Creech, Enter the Body and Everything Is Poison by Joy McCullough, The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo, Crank, Glass, and Fallout by Ellen Hopkins, Starfish by Lisa Fipps, Kareem Between by Shifa Saltagi Safadi, Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai, Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds, Shout, Speak, and Winter Girls by Laurie Halse Anderson, and One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies by Sonya Sones. Also mentioned: The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost, Beautiful Boy by David Sheff, Tweak by Nic Sheff, and the movie Trainspotting. You can find Cristal Morris on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/@cristalthetford4791 Check out books, TV shows and movies at countycat.mcfls.org, wplc.overdrive.com, hoopladigital.com and kanopy.com/en/westallis. For more about WAPL, visit westallislibrary.org. Music: Tim Moor via Pixabay

Thursday's show was co-hosted by Ray Dudley of WKXL's “New Hampshire Unscripted”. We talked about a number of topics including his “under the radar” participation in the Boston Marathon and the great poet Robert Frost who was born on this date in 1874 and did much of his writing in Derry, NH. We were also joined by one of the radio “voices” of the New Hampshire FisherCats Chris Jared who talked about some the promotions that will be added this season at Delta Dental Stadium and that WKXL is now the official radio station of the FisherCats with Opening Night set for April 3 at 6:03 PM.

Robert Frost 2_In his own wordsMentioned in this episode:WEHC 90.7 FM is the Voice of Southwest Virginia. Stay tuned, connected, informed and entertained. This is listener supported radio. www.wehcfm.com

00:00 We're hearing that, and uh I got to tell you a little bit more about this coming up at the top of the next hour, um that the 2020 election, well, let's go back even further than that. The 2016 election, we know with Operation Arctic Frost that Hillary Clinton colluded with the FBI under Jim Comey. 00:28 colluded with the intelligence community, started that whole ridiculous Russia, Russia, Russia thing. 00:36 claiming that Donald Trump was colluding with the Russians. Well, the only people that were in collusion were Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Susan Rice, Valerie Jarrett. 00:48 Jim Comey, Clapper and Brennan. We know that now. Now that should have been the single biggest political scandal on the planet, but it wasn't because of the mainstream media. 01:11 The mainstream media and their bias is absolutely off the charts. Listen to what Joe Conscious said. I think I'm losing him for just a second. Hold on. He's talking about this stuff? I think we could safely come to one cold and incontrovertible fact that if it's good for Trump and therefore good for the country, legacy media will reflexively be against it. 01:39 I mean, let's quote Pete Hexgoth today, the secretary of war. He told reporters this, you cheer against Trump so hard, it's in your DNA and in your blood. You take half trues, spun information, leaked information to cause doubt and manipulate the public mind. And that's exactly what they do. And they've been able to get away with this for several decades now. Well, now we got Brendan Carr over at the FCC and he's like, wait a minute. 02:09 Wait a minute, hold on. Is what you're doing actually in the public best interest? Because you see, as broadcasters, we have that requirement, the public interest obligation. In fact, we have to file every year a report with the FCC on how we operate in the public interest. 02:38 Now, there's a huge difference between that and censorship. But of course, the Democrats, want to muddy the water on that. You have to serve the public interest. And if just posting, you know, in your so-called news, in your journalism, one side of the story, that doesn't wash. 03:06 So now all the Democrats, including Brian Stelter and all of that, they're very upset over renting a car. the American people have subsidized broadcasters to billions of dollars. 03:21 by providing free access to the nation's airwaves. This is according to Brendan Carr. It is very important to bring back trust in the media, which has earned itself the label of fake news. And they have earned that, not only for what they report, but more importantly, for what they don't report. They hardly reported Arctic frost at all. At all. They hardly reported any of the fraud that was going on in Minneapolis. 03:49 Are they going to report the fraud that's going on in Maine? No, they are not because I guarantee you, you probably haven't heard about that. The autism fraud that's going on in Maine could eclipse what went on in Minneapolis. 04:07 So now there's a video out there that shows homeless people in California being paid to sign petitions. Now, you might say, hey, what is wrong with that? Well, there's a lot wrong with that. Hey, Sandra, you know, what I'm about to show you is one reason people don't trust the election system. Long line, mostly homeless, getting five bucks to sign election petitions. Not only is that illegal, 04:37 They're also being asked to commit fraud by impersonating other voters hundreds of miles away. Hey, hey, what's the line for? Sign a petition. Shut up, don't say nothing to the You 25 bucks to sign a petition. You get 25 bucks? Five bucks. Five bucks. Okay. So the guy who shot this says hundreds signed these petitions. No one reportedly asked for an ID, nor were they told what they were signing. I get fired out of this soon? Yeah. 05:06 And what is it? Just sign it. Just sign it? Yeah. You ready now? First name is going to be Carol. Last name is... And then they tell them w ...

In his classic poem, The Mending Wall, Robert Frost says, “Good fences make good neighbors.” Jim Daly shares why good fences make good marriages, too. Support Family Ministry If you enjoyed listening to Focus on the Family Commentary, please give us your feedback.

Dr. Laura Scherck Wittkoff welcomes Ann Medlock and John Graham, the founders and leaders of the Giraffe Heroes Project—an organization that has spent over 40 years celebrating ordinary people who "stick their necks out" for the common good. From their serendipitous Superman movie meet-cute to building a global movement around courage, compassion, and community, Ann and John share how storytelling became their most powerful tool for inspiring action and creating change. Key Topics Discussed The Power of Storytelling Over Preaching - John's evolution: realizing that 10,000 years of human history—from Neanderthals to troubadours—proves that **stories inspire action** in ways speeches cannot - How storytelling bypasses the mind's objections and goes straight to the heart - The role of narrative in communicating core values and inspiring heroism Redefining Courage - Courage isn't gender-specific—it's something we all possess - Ann's bold stance: firing an advisor who claimed courage was a "man's issue" - John's journey: recognizing that emotional and spiritual courage are as powerful as physical bravery - Why physical courage (climbing mountains, dodging bullets) was easier than the emotional courage required for real change The Giraffe Heroes Project: Mission & Impact - Founded in 1981 by Ann Medlock as an antidote to violence and trivia in media - Nearly 2,000 giraffes honored across 30+ fields and 16+ countries - Seven overseas affiliates extending impact globally - Civil disobedience (à la Gandhi and MLK) is celebrated; actions must benefit significant numbers of people Collaboration Over Competition - The Giraffe Heroes school program is built on collaboration, not competition - Free, digital-accessible curriculum for teachers worldwide - The program transforms classrooms: creating "communities of learners" instead of isolated, competing students - The powerful bicycle story: a student's classmates cheer when he masters riding a two-wheel bike—something that wouldn't have happened before the program Education & Youth Empowerment - Over 2,000 classroom downloads; approximately 375,000 children reached through print materials - Materials available free at Giraffe.org/teachers (email sign-up only) - The US Navy uses the program in overseas schools - Cartoon characters "Stanley" (Stand Tall) and "Beatrice" (Be Tall)—giraffe twins—tell stories to 3-year-olds about bravery and caring - Grandpa and Grandma tell different versions to reach multiple learning styles - Teachers report that kids shift from isolated to connected when exposed to the program The Ripple Effect of Recognition - Many heroes don't see themselves as heroic and are reluctant to share their stories - Telling giraffe stories inspires not just the public, but the giraffes themselves - Real example: a small-town barber doing community work thinks no one is watching—until the story is told and volunteers and support arrive - Some giraffes report they considered quitting but were re-energized by hearing their own story shared Overcoming Barriers - **Funding:** The biggest ongoing challenge. Some funders prefer direct interventions (saving redwoods, backing candidates) over storytelling - Early federal grants supported classroom curriculum development (over $1M across 10 years) - Money and mindset: convincing people that purpose-driven storytelling is as important as tactical giving - The "lightweight" perception: early critics dismissed storytelling as trivial until results were undeniable The Love Story Within the Hero Story - Ann and John met at a writer's group in New York, 1981-1982 - Ann invited John to see the original Superman movie (somewhat reluctantly) - Their three-day courtship led to a 44+ year partnership - John initially thought the giraffe concept was "lightweight" but came to see Ann as a "troubadour for our times" - Wedding entry music: Superman theme - John writes the bylaws; Ann does the creative, bold work—"it works out well" Aging, Purpose, and Public Health - Doing good has measurable health benefits, especially for aging populations - Purpose-driven service is a form of preventive medicine - Ann is 92 years old and "not quitting"; John is 83 and still creating TikToks and short-form videos - Stories of older heroes: a woman in her 80s smuggling pharmaceuticals to Central American revolutionaries, organizing environmentalists and tribes in the Pacific Northwest - The Swiss watch metaphor: a life without purpose is like a watch with no hands—what's the point? Adapting & Staying Relevant - Evolution from LPs (33s) shipped to radio stations → print materials → digital access - Now on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube Shorts, and other social platforms - Constantly reinventing tactics and strategies while staying true to the 1981 mission - Not falling behind culturally is essential to remaining impactful The Dream: "Giraffe" as a Verb - Ann's top wish: for "giraffe" to become a verb—"Let's giraffe this!" - Similar to how "Google" and "Kleenex" became verbs - A measure of cultural penetration and lasting impact Global Scale, Tiny Budget - Working on less than $100K annually - "Tiny but mighty" organization with genuinely global impact - Known from North America to Singapore - Seven overseas affiliates amplifying reach Inspiration from Other Heroes - Ann draws inspiration from Nelson Mandela's autobiographies and insightful life stories - John's personal mantra: Robert Frost's "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood / I took the one less traveled by / And that's all the difference" - Ann's personal song: "Whatever Lola Wants" from Damn Yankees—she's created something from nothing and keeps iterating **Website:** Giraffe.org - **Teacher Materials:** Giraffe.org/teachers (free, digital, email sign-up) - **Contact:** Laura at Small and Gutsy (laura@smallandgutsy.org) - **Social Media:** Giraffe Heroes on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube Shorts **Ann Medlock** is a freelance editor, publicist, and writer who founded the Giraffe Heroes Project in 1981. She was named an Education Innovator by the National Education Association and received the Caring Institute's Caring Award. At 92 years old, she continues to lead the organization and develop new materials. **John Graham** is the Executive Director of Giraffe Heroes. A former US Foreign Service officer, he has worked on peace initiatives across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. He has climbed Denali's north wall, hitchhiked around the world, and worked as a war correspondent. He and Ann have been partners for 44 years.

Send me a Text Message here.That's NOT what that means. - Huh.  You're right.Sometimes even interpreters don't understand what it means. Did you ever find out what you thought an idiom, phrase, a slang term, a song lyric, or even a poem meant was actually wrong? Inconceivable!Today we explore Robert Frost's poem The Road Not Taken.RSVP now! Robyn K Dean's Workshop March 28, 2026 Support the showDon't forget to tell a friend or colleague! Click below! IW Community Buy Me a Coffee Get extras with a subscription! Share the PODCAST Subscribe to the Monthly Newsletter Listen & follow on many other platforms. Send me a voicemail! [TRANSCRIPTS ARE HERE] Thanks for listening. I'll see you next week.Take care now.

Ваш любимый канал «ВОТ ЭТО английский» — теперь в аудиоформате!Попробуйте и научитесь понимать английский на слух с удовольствием

If Robert Frost were a musician, today's poem might be a B-side to one of his better-known poems. 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

Note: Due to technical difficulties, Rhina wasn't able to join us. Instead, Timothy Green and Katie Dozier talked about her work and read poems with her friends Alfred Nichol and Pedro Poitevin. Rhina P. Espaillat is a bilingual poet, essayist, short story writer, translator, and former English teacher in New York City's public high schools. Her newest book is For Instance, just out from Wiseblood Books. She has previous published twelve books, five chapbooks, and a monograph on translation. Her most recent works include the poetry collections: And After All, The Field, and Brief Accident of Light: A Day in Newburyport, co-authored with Alfred Nicol. Her numerous translations include work by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, San Juan de la Cruz, Garcia Lorca, Miguel Hernandez, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, Richard Wilbur, and many contemporary poets of the Americas and the Hispanic diaspora, among others. Find For Instance here: https://www.wisebloodbooks.com/store/p173/For_Instance%3A_Poems_by_Rhina_P._Espaillat.html As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. Submit your poems through Submittable by midnight Sunday for a chance to be invited: https://rattle.submittable.com/submit/269309/rattlecast-prompt-poems-online For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/page/rattlecast/ This Week's Prompt: Write a poem that explores how one of the cognitive biases has shaped your life. Next Week's Prompt: Write a formal sonnet—choosing between a Petrarchan, Shakespearean, Spenserian, or Miltonic sonnet. Don't forget the volta and at some point, use an exclamation mark! The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

SLEERICKETS is a podcast about poetry and other intractable problems. My book Midlife now exists. Buy it here, or leave it a rating here or hereFor more SLEERICKETS, subscribe to SECRET SHOW, join the group chat, and send me a poem for Listener Crit!Leave the show a rating here (actually, just do it on your phone, it's easier). Thanks!Wear SLEERICKETS t-shirts and hoodies. They look good!SLEERICKETS is now on YouTube!For a frank, anonymous critique on SLEERICKETS, subscribe to the SECRET SHOW and send a poem of no more 25 lines to sleerickets [at] gmail [dot] com Some of the topics mentioned in this episode:– Pre-order Brian's book The Optimists! It's so good!– Let me know if you'd like a review copy of my forthcoming chapbook The Soft Black Stars: sleerickets [at] gmail [dot] com– Only Sing by John Berryman, ed. Shane McCrae– New and Collected Hell by Shane McCrae– Dream Song 26 by John Berryman– Dream Song 14 by John Berryman– Dream Song 29 by John Berryman– Dream Song: For Louis MacNeice by John Berryman– A Most Marvelous Piece of Luck by Greg Williamson– Cynara by Ernest Dowson– Shadow of the Colossus– Fallout– Fallout (TV series)– Robert Frost's original inaugural poem, Dedication– Democracy and Poetry by Robert Penn Warren– Fall of the Star High School Running Back by The Mountain GoatsFrequently mentioned names:– Joshua Mehigan– Shane McCrae– A. E. Stallings– Ryan Wilson– Morri Creech– Austin Allen– Jonathan Farmer– Zara Raab– Amit Majmudar– Ethan McGuire– Coleman Glenn– Chris Childers– Alexis Sears– JP Gritton– Alex Pepple– Ernie Hilbert– Joanna Pearson– Matt Wall– Steve Knepper – Helena Feder– David Yezzi– Victoria Moul– Katie Dozier & Tim Green– Tristram Fane SaundersOther Ratbag Poetry Pods:Poetry Says by Alice AllanI Hate Matt Wall by Matt WallVersecraft by Elijah Perseus BlumovRatbag Poetics By David Jalal MotamedAlice: In Future PostsBrian: @BPlatzerCameron: Minor TiresiasMatthew: sleerickets [at] gmail [dot] comMusic by ETRNLArt by Daniel Alexander Smith

Episode: 1856 Form and feeling, a necessary partnership.  Today, our guest. Seattle actor Megan Cole, considers a necessary partnership.

Send us a textI am devoting the mini Holiday Break episodes of Talking About Kids to poetry about the holiday season and issues related to kids. In this fourth mini episode, I read a classic: “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost. I am sure it is familiar to you, but, as you listen, please consider whether the narrator is finding emotional regulation in the moment being described. A link to the poem is at talkingaboutkids.com.

Russell shares his favorite reads of the year, an annual tradition on the Russell Moore Show. Watch the video of this episode on YouTube here. You can read a version of this list from the newsletter here.  Russell's top ten books (in alphabetical order by author): Leslie Baynes, Between Interpretation and Imagination: C. S. Lewis and the Bible (Eerdmans) Wendell Berry, Marce Catlett: The Force of a Story (Counterpoint) Nicholas Carr, Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart (Norton) Catherine Conybeare, Augustine the African (Norton) Stephen King and Maurice Sendak, Hansel and Gretel (HarperCollins) Ian McEwan, What We Can Know: A Novel (Knopf) Daniel Nayeri, The Teacher of Nomad Land: A World War II Story (Levine Querido) Adam Plunkett, Love and Need: The Life of Robert Frost's Poetry (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) Jonathan Rauch, Cross Purposes: Christianity's Broken Bargain with Democracy (Yale University Press) Graham Tomlin, Blaise Pascal: The Man Who Made the Modern World (Hodder & Stoughton) Keep up with Russell: Sign up for the weekly newsletter where Russell shares thoughtful takes on big questions, offers a Christian perspective on life, and recommends books and music he's enjoying. Submit a question for the show at questions@russellmoore.com Subscribe to the Christianity Today Magazine: Special offer for listeners of The Russell Moore Show: Click here for 25% off a subscription Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Robert Frost, the only poet ever to receive four Pulitzer prize awards, joined Meet the Press on Christmas Day 1955 and was asked which of his poems best captured the spirit of America. The full episode on video is available on MeetThePress.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We can always wax poetic about food, but we’re not the only ones. As a cold-weather treat, we’re offering up a dramatic reading and discussion of Robert Frost’s poem ‘After Apple-Picking’. Read the poem here: https://poets.org/poem/after-apple-pickingSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Noel catches up with Gordon Clapp. The actor is best known for playing Detective Greg Medavoy on NYPD Blue. Medavoy appeared in 256 episodes, the second-most on the show, only behind Dennis Franz's Det. Andy Sipowicz.  Gordon won an Emmy for his role in 1998.  He had guest-starring roles in Cheers, Night Court, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Deadwood and Poker Face. Gordon played Chicago White Sox Hall of Fame catcher Ray Schalk in the 1988 movie, Eight Men Out, based on the 1919 Black Sox scandal. On Broadway, he appeared in the 2005 revival of David Mamet's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Glengarry Glen Ross, where he was nominated for a Tony Award. Gordon also has a one-man play about American poet Robert Frost.

Robert Frost is having one of those days. 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

November mood. 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

Stopping By Woods On a Snowy Evening: REDUX (Part Two) The darkest night of the year. A chilling poem by Robert Frost. And a teenager walking into the woods of Jefferson Township, never to return the same. In this REDUX edition of The Devil Within, we return to Stopping By Woods On a Snowy Evening, exploring how Frost's poetry of solitude and dread became an eerie mirror for the life and death of Tommy Sullivan. With added commentary and deeper analysis, Branden Morgan traces how the winter solstice, ancient folklore, and occult historyconverged in the Pine Barrens—and how one boy's story still resonates nearly four decades later. This re-release comes in support of the MGM+ documentary series Let the Devil In, currently the #1 show on the platform, expanding the story of Season One into a chilling new visual dimension. Support & Connect     •    Stream Let the Devil In now, only on MGM+.     •    Visit ⁠http://www.quince.com/devilwithin⁠ for free shipping and 365-day returns.     •    Go to ⁠www.mood.com/devilwithin⁠ and use promo code DEVILWITHIN for 20% off your first order.     •    Follow us on Instagram: @thedevilwithinpod (⁠https://instagram.com/thedevilwithinpod⁠).     •    For press & inquiries: ⁠info@eviocreative.com⁠.     •    Don't forget to rate, review, and follow The Devil Within wherever you get your podcasts.

Stopping By Woods On a Snowy Evening: REDUX (Part One) The darkest night of the year. A chilling poem by Robert Frost. And a teenager walking into the woods of Jefferson Township, never to return the same. In this REDUX edition of The Devil Within, we return to Stopping By Woods On a Snowy Evening, exploring how Frost's poetry of solitude and dread became an eerie mirror for the life and death of Tommy Sullivan. With added commentary and deeper analysis, Branden Morgan traces how the winter solstice, ancient folklore, and occult historyconverged in the Pine Barrens—and how one boy's story still resonates nearly four decades later. This re-release comes in support of the MGM+ documentary series Let the Devil In, currently the #1 show on the platform, expanding the story of Season One into a chilling new visual dimension. Support & Connect     •    Stream Let the Devil In now, only on MGM+.     •    Visit http://www.quince.com/devilwithin for free shipping and 365-day returns.     •    Go to www.mood.com/devilwithin and use promo code DEVILWITHIN for 20% off your first order.     •    Follow us on Instagram: @thedevilwithinpod (https://instagram.com/thedevilwithinpod).     •    For press & inquiries: info@eviocreative.com.     •    Don't forget to rate, review, and follow The Devil Within wherever you get your podcasts.