Poems for the Speed of Life

Poems for the Speed of Life
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Poems for the Speed of Life is a podcast to bring the power of poetry to your day. Each episode includes a reading of a one poem, some thoughts and ideas, and an invitation to allow it to speak to you however it does. Poetry is a vital exploration of the world, of ourselves, of ourselves in the world. If you enjoy the podcast, please leave Poems for the Speed of Life a rating on Spotify or Apple Podcasts so other people can find it too.

  1. S5, E6: "All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace" by Richard Brautigan

    JAN 31

    S5, E6: "All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace" by Richard Brautigan

    Richard Brautigan was born in Tacoma, Washington in 1935 and died in 1984. He had an unhappy childhood marked by poverty, and in his teens was committed to Oregon State Hospital where he received electroshock therapy. Moving to San Francisco, he published the novel Trout Fishing in America in 1967 which established him as a literary force. That same year, while poet-in-residence at the California Institute of Technology, Brautigan wrote "All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace", and the poem was later published in a collection of the same name. This poem has been interpreted in wildly opposing ways — as both idealistic, even utopian dream of a world when nature and technology live in harmony, or as a darkly ironic warning about technology and nature. In the latter reading (which is, I think, the more common interpretation), the subtext is that such harmony is impossible. That the machines cannot possess loving grace, that loving grace is the preserve of humans, and that humans are gravely threatened by the mechanistic sweep of technology. I’m not interested, really, in arguing for or against either interpretation. I don’t think it’s all idealism and I don’t think it’s all irony. I do think that it’s a brilliant encapsulation of where humanity was headed in the 1960s, with the atomic weapons still fresh in the memory, with the peril of nuclear war hanging over everything, with the birth of the computer age that was already promising to change everything.  Fast forward 60 years, and I am exposed, or more accurately expose myself on a daily basis to so-called Artificial Intelligence tools and software — and I expect many of you are exposed to this also.  The lines between humanity as part of nature on the one hand, and humanity as the creative force behind nature-wrecking technology on the other, are as blurred as they’ve ever been.  So I don’t care which way this poem is interpreted. I won’t argue that it’s a beacon of positivity and techno-utopianism, and I won’t argue that it’s a stark warning against the march of technology. I do care, and care deeply, about the vista it offers us, and the questions it poses, even if it doesn’t ask (or answer) those questions directly. It’s up to us how we respond to those questions, and whether we see hope within this. Notwithstanding the damage that a lot of technology has caused, there is also of course all of the gains that technology has given us, so I still believe there is hope, and I still believe this poem might offer us a route in to think about these questions and to take fruitful steps into the future, whatever it might look like. You can view an annotated print of the poem at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London's collection here. You can buy Richard Brautigan's books via your preferred bookseller below: Bookshop.orgAmazon.comAmazon.co.uk

    8 min
  2. S5, E5: "Blessings" by Francis Harvey

    12/20/2025

    S5, E5: "Blessings" by Francis Harvey

    This is the fifth episode of the Nature, Wilderness and Wildness series of the podcast. Francis Harvey was born in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, in 1925 and died in 2014 at the age of 89. Though born in Northern Ireland, he lived most of his life in County Donegal in the Republic, and was a member of Aosdána, the Irish association that honours artists who have produced distinguished work of genuine originality. His poem “Heron” won the 1989 Guardian and World Wildlife Fund poetry competition. You can buy Francis Harvey’s Collected Poems, published by Dedalus Press, here.⁠⁠

    7 min
  3. S5, E4: "breaklight" by Lucille Clifton

    12/16/2025

    S5, E4: "breaklight" by Lucille Clifton

    This is the fourth episode of the Nature, Wilderness and Wildness series of the podcast. Lucille Clifton was born in 1936 in Depew, New York, and died in 2010. She served as Poet Laureate of Maryland from 1979 to 1985, was twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and won the National Book Award for Blessing the Boats in 2000. Clifton’s style was a minimalist one — without standard capitalization or punctuation — but if that was a rebellion of sorts (she was in her 30s by the time of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s — it also gave her poems a rawness and power. “breaklight” comes from her 1974 collection An Ordinary Woman, a collection that explored identity, both as woman and poet. ⁠⁠⁠Find out more about Lucille Clifton’s life and work here.⁠⁠⁠ Shane’s new professional service is Strong Words, which helps businesses, organizations and leaders all around the world find the right words to communicate their mission, their vision, and their impact. More about Strong Words I’d love to hear what you think of this episode. You can leave a comment below or on Spotify. Leave a comment If you like the show, we would be so grateful for your rating or review. For one thing, it’s a great way to tell the various platforms that it’s worth showing the podcast to new people. If you use Spotify and you’re not yet a subscriber on Spotify, please seek out the “Follow” button on the “Poems for the Speed of Life” show page in your Spotify app. You can also leave the show a rating by tapping the stars. MANTRon by Alex-Productions | https://onsound.eu/ Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/ Creative Commons CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Lucille Clifton. (Photo courtesy of famouspoetsandpoems / Wikipedia)Announcing Strong Words⁠Your thoughtsRatings and ReviewsMusic Credit

    9 min
  4. S5, E3: "Instructions on Not Giving Up" by Ada Limón

    11/30/2025

    S5, E3: "Instructions on Not Giving Up" by Ada Limón

    This is the third episode of the Nature, Wilderness and Wildness series of the podcast. Ada Limón was born in California in 1976 and was the U.S. Poet Laureate from 2022 until 2025. She is one of the most notable and noteworthy voices in contemporary American poetry. Some of the themes of her work include love, loss, the body, and the natural world. Limon has published eight collections, including 2018’s The Carrying, which included today’s poem and won the American National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry. Her latest collection is Startlement, published in 2025, and she also published two recent poetry books for younger readers, In Praise of Mystery (Norton Young Readers) and And, Too, The Fox (Lerner Publishing). She lives in Kentucky. ⁠⁠Find out more about Ada Limón's life and work here.⁠⁠ ⁠You can buy the collection “The Carrying” from Amazon.co.uk here.⁠ Announcing Strong Words Shane’s new professional service is Strong Words, which helps businesses, organizations and leaders all around the world find the right words to communicate their mission, their vision, and their impact. ⁠⁠Find out more about Strong Words⁠⁠ Ratings and reviews I’d love to hear what you think of this episode. You can leave a comment below. If you like the show, we would be so grateful for your rating or review. For one thing, it’s a great way to tell the various platforms that it’s worth showing the podcast to new people. If you’re not yet a subscriber on Spotify, please seek out the “Follow” button on the ⁠⁠“Poems for the Speed of Life” show page⁠⁠ in your Spotify app. You can also leave the show a rating by tapping the stars. Music credit MANTRon by Alex-Productions | https://onsound.eu/ Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/ Creative Commons CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

    9 min
  5. S5, E2: "Death of a Naturalist" by Seamus Heaney

    11/20/2025

    S5, E2: "Death of a Naturalist" by Seamus Heaney

    This is the second episode of the Nature, Wilderness and Wildness series of the podcast. Seamus Heaney, who died in 2013, was one of Ireland's most celebrated and most loved poets, and the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996. He grew up on a farm in County Derry, Northern Ireland, and the landscape of his childhood—its bogs, fields, and rural rhythms—saturated his work throughout his life. "Death of a Naturalist" is the title poem from his first collection, published in 1966 when Heaney was just 27 years old. ⁠Find out more about Seamus Heaney's life and work here.⁠ You can buy the collection "Death of a Naturalist" from Amazon.co.uk here. Announcing Strong Words Shane’s new professional service is Strong Words, which helps businesses, organizations and leaders all around the world find the right words to communicate their mission, their vision, and their impact. ⁠Find out more about Strong Words⁠ Ratings and reviews I’d love to hear what you think of this episode. You can leave a comment below. If you like the show, we would be so grateful for your rating or review. For one thing, it’s a great way to tell the various platforms that it’s worth showing the podcast to new people. If you’re not yet a subscriber on Spotify, please seek out the “Follow” button on the ⁠“Poems for the Speed of Life” show page⁠ in your Spotify app. You can also leave the show a rating by tapping the stars. Music credit MANTRon by Alex-Productions | https://onsound.eu/ Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/ Creative Commons CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

    11 min
  6. S5, E1: "The Peace of Wild Things" by Wendell Berry

    11/14/2025

    S5, E1: "The Peace of Wild Things" by Wendell Berry

    This is the first episode of the Nature, Wilderness and Wildness series of the podcast. Wendell Berry is an American poet, farmer, and environmental activist who has spent most of his life on a small farm in Kentucky. Born in 1934, Berry has been writing for over six decades, exploring themes of agrarian life, community, and our relationship with the land. He's both a working farmer and a thinker about what it means to live well on this earth. The New York Times has called him the "prophet of rural America." "The Peace of Wild Things" was first published in Berry’s 1968 collection “Openings”, and has become one of his most beloved poems.  a quiet antidote to anxiety, and a reminder of where we might turn when the weight of the world becomes too much to bear. Find out more about Wendell Berry’s work via The Berry Center here. Announcing Strong Words Shane’s new professional service is Strong Words, which helps businesses, organizations and leaders all around the world find the right words to communicate their mission, their vision, and their impact. Find out more about Strong Words Ratings and reviews I’d love to hear what you think of this episode. You can leave a comment below. If you like the show, we would be so grateful for your rating or review. For one thing, it’s a great way to tell the various platforms that it’s worth showing the podcast to new people. If you’re not yet a subscriber on Spotify, please seek out the “Follow” button on the “Poems for the Speed of Life” show page in your Spotify app. You can also leave the show a rating by tapping the stars. Music credit MANTRon by Alex-Productions | https://onsound.eu/ Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/ Creative Commons CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

    9 min
  7. Series 5 Trailer: Nature, Wilderness, Wildness

    SEASON 5 TRAILER

    Series 5 Trailer: Nature, Wilderness, Wildness

    Announcing a new series of Poems for the Speed of Life with Shane Breslin.  This series of the podcast is overdue, and it's great to be back. This series is all about the world around us. Nature. Wilderness. Wildness. The other living things that share our space and our place on this earth. Included in this series of Poems for the Speed of Life will be poems from Sharon Olds, Mary Oliver, Seamus Heaney, Lucille Clifton, Wendell Berry and many more. A few things to note: Shane's new business is Strong Words, which helps businesses, organizations and leaders all around the world find the right words to communicate their mission, their vision, and their impact. Find out more about Strong Words here.If you're not yet a subscriber on Spotify, please seek out the "Follow" button on the show page in your Spotify app. You can also leave the show a rating by tapping the stars.Poems for the Speed of Life also appears on Substack here. Please go there and sign up if you would like to receive a notification by email when every new episode goes live.I'd love to hear what you think of this episode. You can leave a comment on Spotify or on Substack.In this trailer I mentioned Matthijs Schouten and his appearance on The Almanac of Ireland, a podcast from the much-missed Irish naturalist, author, linguist and documentary-maker Manchán Magan. You can listen to that episode, "Enchanted by Nature", which was first published in November 2020, here.

    6 min
  8. S4, E10: "A Child's Christmas in Wales" by Dylan Thomas.

    12/23/2024

    S4, E10: "A Child's Christmas in Wales" by Dylan Thomas.

    Welcome to another episode of Poems for the Speed of Life with Shane Breslin. This is Episode 10 of the Christmas series and today's piece is "A Child's Christmas in Wales" by Dylan Thomas. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠You can read the piece here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ You can get notified about new episodes, receive more detailed episode descriptions, and if you are so moved, support the podcast financially, by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠joining on Substack here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. *** Listen back to the⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ introductory episode of the Christmas series on Spotify here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. *** For a detailed outline of the mission and purpose behind this podcast, please check out Episode 100, "Why Poems for the Speed of Life?", and Episode 200, "A New Era for Poems for the Speed of Life", in your podcast player. *** You can subscribe to or follow the show for free wherever you listen to podcasts. To leave the show a review: On Spotify. Open the Spotify app (iOS or Android), ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠find the show⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and tap to rate five-stars. On Apple. Open your Apple Podcasts app, find the show and tap to rate five-stars. *** ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Support the show on Substack, and receive notifications when new episodes go live and other benefits, here.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ *** Music on this episode is by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lofium⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

    24 min
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4.4
out of 5
7 Ratings

About

Poems for the Speed of Life is a podcast to bring the power of poetry to your day. Each episode includes a reading of a one poem, some thoughts and ideas, and an invitation to allow it to speak to you however it does. Poetry is a vital exploration of the world, of ourselves, of ourselves in the world. If you enjoy the podcast, please leave Poems for the Speed of Life a rating on Spotify or Apple Podcasts so other people can find it too.

Information

  • Creator
    Poems for the Speed of Life
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    241
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Poems for the Speed of Life
  • Show Website
    Poems for the Speed of Life

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