“The Giver of Stars” by Amy Lowell – Season 2, Episode 5

Another week, another podcast episode! This week, we return to one of my favorite poets, Amy Lowell. Also, we will be discussing the poet device of alliteration and some of the uses it can have for your writing. Here is the text of the poem in case you wanted to read along while listening to the podcast:

The Giver of Stars

Hold your soul open for my welcoming.
Let the quiet of your spirit bathe me
With its clear and rippled coolness,
That, loose-limbed and weary, I find rest,
Outstretched upon your peace, as on a bed of ivory.

Let the flickering flame of your soul play all about me,
That into my limbs may come the keenness of fire,
The life and joy of tongues of flame,
And, going out from you, tightly strung and in tune,
I may rouse the blear-eyed world,
And pour into it the beauty which you have begotten.

If you need help finding the episode, you can stream the episode here! Or listen on iTunes, Google Play, or any major podcast directory.

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A Birthday and a Simile

Episode four of season two is out! Listen to “A Birthday” by Christina Rossetti. And in this episode, I explain what the real difference between a metaphor and a simile is.

Want to read along while you listen? Here is the text of the poem:

“A Birthday” by Christina Rossetti

My heart is like a singing bird
                  Whose nest is in a water’d shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
                  Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
                  That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
                  Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a dais of silk and down;
                  Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
                  And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
                  In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
                  Is come, my love is come to me.

You can stream the episode here! Or listen on iTunes, Google Play, or any major podcast directory.

“Sonnet 15: When I consider everything that grows,” Poetry Studio Podcast, S2 E3

Want to get to know Shakespeare and the sonnet form a bit better? Listen to this week’s episode of The Poetry Studio Podcast! We are discussing Sonnet 15.

Here is the text of the poem:

Sonnet 15: When I consider everything that grows

When I consider everything that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment,
That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;
When I perceive that men as plants increase,
Cheered and check’d even by the selfsame sky,
Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,
And wear their brave state out of memory;
Then the conceit of this inconstant stay
Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,
Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay
To change your day of youth to sullied night;
And all in war with Time for love of you,
As he takes from you, I engraft you new.

You can stream the episode here! Or listen on iTunes, Google Play, or any major podcast directory.

“Song of a Second April” by Edna St. Vincent Millay – S2 E2

In the second episode of the second season of The Poetry Studio Podcast, we read and discuss “Song of a Second April” by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Song of a Second April

April this year, not otherwise
Than April of a year ago,
Is full of whispers, full of sighs,
Of dazzling mud and dingy snow;
Hepaticas that pleased you so
Are here again, and butterflies.

There rings a hammering all day,
And shingles lie about the doors;
In orchards near and far away
The grey wood-pecker taps and bores;
The men are merry at their chores,
And children earnest at their play.

The larger streams run still and deep,
Noisy and swift the small brooks run
Among the mullein stalks the sheep
Go up the hillside in the sun,
Pensively,—only you are gone,
You that alone I cared to keep.

Stream the episode here! Or listen on iTunes, Google Play, or any major podcast directory.

“My Grandmother’s Love Letters” by Hart Crane – S2 E1

In the first episode of season two of The Poetry Studio Podcast, I read “My Grandmother’s Love Letters” by Hart Crane and discuss what a metaphor is and how to use one. Here is the text of the poem:

My Grandmother's Love Letters


There are no stars tonight 
But those of memory. 
Yet how much room for memory there is 
In the loose girdle of soft rain. 

There is even room enough 
For the letters of my mother’s mother, 
Elizabeth, 
That have been pressed so long 
Into a corner of the roof 
That they are brown and soft, 
And liable to melt as snow. 

Over the greatness of such space 
Steps must be gentle. 
It is all hung by an invisible white hair. 
It trembles as birch limbs webbing the air. 

And I ask myself: 

"Are your fingers long enough to play 
Old keys that are but echoes: 
Is the silence strong enough 
To carry back the music to its source 
And back to you again 
As though to her?"

Yet I would lead my grandmother by the hand 
Through much of what she would not understand; 
And so I stumble. And the rain continues on the roof 
With such a sound of gently pitying laughter.

Stream the episode here! Or listen on iTunes, Google Play, or any major podcast directory.