Quite Excellent

LydonTeaches
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Quite Excellent Podcast

This podcast is a supplement to in-class instruction, a place to analyze the poems that will be read in class at the start of the following week.

  1. 16 SEPT

    Why I Respect the Dog

    Why I Respect the Dog By Catherine Pierce The dog weighs twelve pounds and uses them as she pleases. The king-size bed is not big enough. Sleep enabler, stretch-monger, when she wants to be touched, she offers up the narrow white arc of her belly. When a loud face crowds her, she growls. Or, depending on the weather, the time, the face, she doesn’t. The dog knows the precise creak of the cheese drawer and waits. She is never wrong. The dog does not care for rain. The dog does not fret about the carpets. The dog is on the table again, and the sandwich crusts are gone, the cereal milk is gone, the cracker crumbs are gone. She knows “down” but will not heed it. Sometimes at night I leave her sleeping on the couch, her eyes flickering with dreams. From bed I hear her nails clicking down the hall, fast, faster. She noses open the door and launches herself against me, her twelve pounds, her punk-black fur. She wants to be close, right now, it is urgent, and then, simple as that, she is.

    18 min

  2. 20 AUG

    The Orange

    The Orange By Wendy Cope At lunchtime I bought a huge orange— The size of it made us all laugh. I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave— They got quarters and I had a half. And that orange, it made me so happy, As ordinary things often do Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park. This is peace and contentment. It’s new. The rest of the day was quite easy. I did all the jobs on my list And enjoyed them and had some time over. I love you. I’m glad I exist.

    6 min

  3. 8 APR

    Message To a Former Friend

    Message To a Former Friend By Tony Hoagland I just wanted to write and say, in case you are hit tomorrow by a truck or are swept from the beach by a freak wave; or in case your ex-wife decides to take her own life right after taking yours; or in case you go to the doctor, who finds a lump in your neck, and you are carried swiftly out onto the terrible waters of clinics and infusions and I never see you again — I just wanted to say, Bon voyage, my friend, my dear and former friend. I just wanted to confess how much you meant to me back then, before I learned to hold my love in check thanks to my tutorial with you. Thank God I got those holes sealed shut through which every passerby could see my neediness, and thank God I banished you into that frozen part of me where nothing moves or breathes. And yet it’s funny, isn’t it? Our weakness can never be eliminated; neediness is part of what we are. Living is a kind of wound; a wound is a kind of opening; and even love that disappeared mysteriously comes back like water bubbling up from underground, cleansed from its long journey in the dark. Right in the open, there it is, waiting for someone to arrive and kneel and drink from it.

    21 min

  4. 28 FEB

    Mother Talks Back to the Monster

    Mother Talks Back to the Monster By Carrie Shipers Tonight, I dressed my son in astronaut pajamas, kissed his forehead and tucked him in. I turned on his night-light and looked for you in the closet and under the bed. I told him you were nowhere to be found, but I could smell your breath, your musty fur. I remember all your tricks: the jagged shadows on the wall, click of your claws, the hand that hovered just above my ankles if I left them exposed. Since I became a parent I see danger everywhere— unleashed dogs, sudden fevers, cereal two days out of date. And even worse than feeling so much fear is keeping it inside, trying not to let my love become so tangled with anxiety my son thinks they're the same. When he says he's seen your tail or heard your heavy step, I insist that you aren't real. Soon he'll feel too old to tell me his bad dreams. If you get lonely after he's asleep, you can always come downstairs. I'll be sitting at the kitchen table with the dishes I should wash, crumbs I should wipe up. We can drink hot tea and talk about the future, how hard it is to be outgrown.

    18 min

  5. 22 JAN

    What I Didn't Know Before

    “What I Didn’t Know Before” By Ada Limón was how horses simply give birth to other horses. Not a baby by any means, not a creature of liminal spaces, but a four-legged beast hellbent on walking, scrambling after the mother. A horse gives way to another horse and then suddenly there are two horses, just like that. That’s how I loved you. You, off the long train from Red Bank carrying a coffee as big as your arm, a bag with two computers swinging in it unwieldily at your side. I remember we broke into laughter when we saw each other. What was between us wasn’t a fragile thing to be coddled, cooed over. It came out fully formed, ready to run.

    18 min

  6. 06/11/2023

    Young Poets

    “Young Poets” By Nicanor Parra, translated by Miller Williams Write as you will in whatever style you like too much blood has run under the bridge to go on believing that only one road is right. In poetry everything is permitted with only this condition of course you have to improve the blank page.

    18 min

  7. 09/10/2023

    the name before the name before mine

    the name before the name before mine By Jay Besemer the unknown has hold of me and its grip is strong as honey on the underside of a spoon the unknown i mean is not the usual one the future the tomorrow of survival but the past and what happened in the name of the name after mine and in the name of the name before mine i do not know enough to speak i do not know enough to remain silent there is a fear that holds me and it sounds like wind it sounds like katydids in catalpa ah the tall grass of the days before i knew there was a before me where do i live if there’s no home remaining where do i live if the home i helped build can never be mine and the one i was born into never was

    17 min

  8. 11/09/2023

    Letter to the Person Who Carved His Initials into the Oldest Living Longleaf Pine in North America

    Letter to the Person Who Carved His Initials into the Oldest Living Longleaf Pine in North America by Matthew Olzmann Tell me what it’s like to live without curiosity, without awe. To sail on clear water, rolling your eyes at the kelp reefs swaying beneath you, ignoring the flicker of mermaid scales in the mist, looking at the world and feeling only boredom. To stand on the precipice of some wild valley, the eagles circling, a herd of caribou booming below, and to yawn with indifference. To discover something primordial and holy. To have the smell of the earth welcome you to everywhere. To take it all in, and then, to reach for your knife.

    18 min
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About

This podcast is a supplement to in-class instruction, a place to analyze the poems that will be read in class at the start of the following week.

Information

  • Creator
    LydonTeaches
  • Years Active
    2018 - 2024
  • Episodes
    81
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Show Website
    Quite Excellent

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