E.E. Phone Poem Alex D'Arata Wolfe and Keir Willett

Nursery Rhyme by W.H. Auden A World Without Cats for Cats Without a World
Have you ever wondered what would happen if we picked a poem about which we could provide very little meaningful analysis? Well, wonder no more!
After a promising preliminary formal analysis (try to keep track of how many times Keir says "Chiasmus" over the course of the episode- spoiler: it's a lot of times) we find ourselves adrift in a sea of strange and vague imagery. We never make it to shore. However, this episode is quite funny (we think), so even though we're not very informative this time around we have a lot of fun. Additionally, even though we didn't find any secret meanings, we both still quite like the poem, so that helps keep things upbeat. (and speaking of "upbeat", I may have recorded an Electronic Dance Music Song about this very poem and put it at the end of the episode!)
Sadly, this poem is still under copyright and hasn't been made legally available online. However, the text of the poem appears in a certain Yahoo Answers question from 2011 which I refer to in the episode (indeed, this appears to be the only place that the text of the poem appears online), so I'll provide that instead:
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110316172400AArsm5n (click "see more" for the text of the poem).

For more detailed show notes, including the diagram I made of this poem's narrative timeline during the episode, please visit www.eephonepoem.com
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The Visible The Untrue

by Hart Crane

Apollo, The Blimp, and the Window Who Loved Him


Ok, so this episode's a bit of a thing. The poem we picked ended up having some relatively strong sexual elements. Those sexual elements are also dealing in particular with gay male sexuality. I do, however, want to stress that we would be expressing the same discomfort (and making similar awkward jokes) if the poem were dealing with hetrosexual sexuality. I think I speak for both Keir and myself when I say that sex is weird, terrifying, and hilarious regardless of the configuration of consenting adults who are having it.
In a related, but distinct issue, throughout the course of the episode Keir and I both express frustration at interpretations of the poem which focus on how Crane feels as a gay man at a time when that was not accepted by soceity, and I think it may come across the wrong way. We don't mean to minimize the difficulty or the emotional complexity of that situation, or to say that it's not a worthy subject for poetry (Indeed, those elements of the poem 100% play into our ultimate insterpretation). It's just when you analyze a poem you're not looking for "answers" like "oh, it's about being gay in the 30's", you're looking for deeper questions, and often times these kinds of very surfacey readings just serve to distract one from what's actually interesting about the poem.

Crane's poems are still in copyright, so I'll refrain from reproducing the text of today's poem here, but PoetryFoundation.org does have (what I presume to be) a scan of the poem's original appearance in January 1933's issue of Poetry magazine which I've linked below.


https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=19921
As we touch on in the episode, the capitalization here isn't consistent with the book I'm referencing, but it really doesn't have much of an impact on this particular poem. (Basically, the one on PoetryFoundation.org capitalizes on each new line, while my edition only capitalizes on the start of a new sentence- as indicated by a period/full stop or question mark).
Also, I'm sorry week's episode's a bit late and that the audio quality is a bit lacking, this was our first attempt with a new recording setup and it caused a couple of hiccups, which should all be ironed out next week.




For more detailed show notes, visit our blog at www.eephonepoem.com

Episode 2: The Adventures of Tricky Dickieson


This poem was a tough one, but I believe we perservered through some delightfully arcane syntax. That said, I do feel compelled to give a "head's up" about the nature of some of the subject matter in this week's episode.


Probably Unnecessary Warning


So, the poem we picked this week ended up relying on some pretty specific allusions to the Book of Exodus, as such spend a good portion of this episode talking about religion. Our personal religious veiws are too complicated to get into here, but essentially we treat religious texts the same as we treat poetry. That is to say, we take it seriously but we're also not afraid to crack a few jokes of possibly questionable taste about it too . I also want to take this opportunity to clearly and openly state that while we both have complex and evolving views on religious questions, we are unequivicably opposed to any institution or system of beliefs that seeks to opress and/or invalidate the experiences and perspectives of women and LGBTQ individuals.

Actual Show NotesSince Dickinson's work is firmly in the public domain, I've reproduced the text of the poem below. The original handwritten manuscript we refer to in the episode is available online here at the Emily Dickinson Archive. You can also find a slightly more extensive version of these very show notes at our website.
This episode definitely ended up a bit more on the serious side of the spectrum than our first, but worry not, the jokes will be back next week in full force.

"No man saw awe, nor to his house" by Emily Dickinson
No man saw awe, nor to his house
Admitted he a man
Though by his awful residence
Has human nature been.

Not deeming of his dread abode
Till laboring to flee
A grasp on comprehension laid
Detained vitality.

Returning is a different route
The Spirit could not show
For breathing is the only work
To be enacted now.
"Am not consumed," old Moses wrote,
"Yet saw him face to face"—
That very physiognomy
I am convinced was this

Ye Olde Showe Notees

Oh! Hello there! I didn’t see you come in. This is the first episode of E.E. Phone Poem (as indicated by the fact that there are no previous episodes). This initial episode is a little rough, but I do hope you’ll bear with us as we iron out all the little bumps and bleeps in our newborn symphoniad* of podcastreation*. I’m not quite sure what else to say by means of an introduction, so I’ll just provide you all with some actually useful supplementary material for the episode.


The text of the poem is, as far as I’ve been able to gather, in the public domain, so I’ve reproduced it here for reference in both it’s revised 1931 version and the 1921 original:
The text of the poem is, as far as I can tell, in the public domain, so I've reproduced it here for reference in both it's revised 1931 version and the 1921 original:


The Man Whose Pharynx was Bad

By Wallace Stevens

This is the revised 1931 version:

The time of year has grown indifferent.
Mildew of summer and the deepening snow
Are both alike in the routine I know:
I am too dumbly in my being pent.

The wind attendant on the solstices
Blows on the shutters of the metropoles,
Stirring no poet in his sleep, and tolls
The grand ideas of the villages.

The malady of the quotidian ...
Perhaps, if winter once could penetrate
Through all its purples to the final slate,
Persisting bleakly in an icy haze;

One might in turn become less diffident,
Out of such mildew plucking neater mould
And spouting new orations of the cold.
One might. One might. But time will not relent.



and this is the original from 1921 (removed lines bolded):


The time of year has grown indifferent.
Mildew of summer and the deepening snow
Are both alike in the routine I know:
I am too dumbly in my being pent.

The wind attendant on the solstices
Blows on the shutters of the metropoles,
Stirring no poet in his sleep, and tolls
The grand ideas of the villages.

The malady of the quotidian ...
Perhaps if summer ever came to rest
And lengthened, deepened, comforted, caressed
Through days like oceans in obsidian

Horizons, full of night's midsummer blaze;
Perhaps, if winter once could penetrate
Through all its purples to the final slate,
Persisting bleakly in an icy haze;

One might in turn become less diffident,
Out of such mildew plucking neater mould
And spouting new orations of the cold.
One might. One might. But time will not relent.


Other Notes and Ephemera

Here is a picture of Noah Webster (not pictured, The Devil):