For many of us, religious liturgy provides the words we need for life’s major milestones. But what if you don’t ascribe to any particular religion? In her uplifting new book, The Wonder Paradox: Embracing the Weirdness of Existence and the Poetry of...
Our conversation about the jargon of elevator design and maintenance inspired listener La Donna Ourada to write a moving poem called “Terminal Landing,” about how riding a metaphor can be a metaphor for life. This is part of a complete episode. The...
Glyn Maxwell, in a recent review of the book Ideas of Order: A Close Reading of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, argues that reading the sonnets altogether in a collection is a little strange, since many of them are worth more attention than they’ll get if...
Our Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a news of the year Limerick Challenge fit for word lovers and news hounds alike. Try to finish this one: When they speak of their great virtuosity / The team does not speak with pomposity / NASA’s rolling in clover /...
Martha reads a love sonnet by the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. Here’s the text of the original Spanish, with an English translation by Mark Eisner. And here’s a lovely audio rendering of the poem in Spanish. This is part of a complete episode...
BLUF adj.— «In sharp contrast to the bottom-line-upfront (BLUF) mandate of an operations order, the involuted metaphors of a sonnet are downright cryptic.» —“In the Valley of the Shadow” by Elizabeth D. Samet New York Times Sept. 30, 2007. (source:...
