Literary Nomads
Join us as we find and lose meaning across modern and classic tales, through ancient and distant verse, atop everything in our many cultures which might be read. Explore familiar and unfamiliar reads, discovering ways to read, ways to know, and ways to make meaning. For teachers, students, and lovers of literature, Waywords can be listened to on its own but also comes with a host of bonus materials on its website for those who wish to go further. I can’t promise what we’ll find along our paths each time, only that we will meet it together.
Negotiating for Space: Compromise and Flag-Planting
This is getting challenging. What are we to do with the Suffering Child question? And on which form of suffering do I plant my flag of resistance? Dostoevsky and Langston Hughes both offer clues.
Reading: “Rebellion” from Dostoevsky’s ‘The Brothers Karamazov’
Still another famous writer has posed the Le Guin question, and he did it in one of Russia's most famous novels, The Brothers Karamazov. Here it is.
Otium and The Moral Philosopher – William James
Le Guin leans on an essay by William James, but what does that have to do with all our garden talk? It's about our blind spots and our privilege.
Marvell’s Garden and Ours – Otium
Speaking of links back to Andrew Marvell's poetry--weren't we?--we expose some of our misapprehensions about nature, leisure, and work. And we read Marvell's poem "The Garden" while we think green thoughts about it.
Vaster Than Empires – Le Guin
What does it mean to embrace "Other"? And how might we understand carpe diem if we truly had "world enough and time?" Le Guin shows us in her famous science fiction short story.
Signpost – Pretty Gardens in Paint
Where we've been and where we're going, and we take a pause in a museum gallery, too!
Trailer: Journey 6
Looking ahead at Season 6: Ursula K. Le Guin's story, "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas," and all the wrestling we do with dilemmas of ethics.
What I Get Wrong
We finish a carpe diem journey and I reflect back on what I've learned, what I believe, and where we are going next.
Writing Back 2: Getting Over Our Essay Anxiety
It's time for the end of our carpe diem journey, and we celebrate with a congratulatory essay! Hey, why so glum?
Bellow Seizes Our Day
Sure we can philosophize, but what happens when we put carpe diem to the test in the modern world of capital?
Rilke and Carpe Don’t Rhyme
What is required of us to find the power and meaning in art? in poetry? Is it related to carpe diem? And does it give us any guidance in how to approach meaningful lives?
Carpe All Over the Place
How far away are we from the original meaning of carpe diem? And does it matter?
Star Trek: “World Enough and Time”
Can some fan-fiction teach us more about carpe diem than a classic Roman poet?
Not Horacing Around: Ode 1.11
Can an ancient Roman poet illuminate the concept of carpe diem? Perhaps, but then again . . .
Writing Back: Answering Marvell
Writing back to authors and their works is essential to the literary culture; it also helps us answer our essential questions. Let's do some of that, then!
Kipling’s “If” and Irony-Hunting
Where do we find irony, anyway? And how? An answer in an offer of cheese.
Dorian Gray and Difficult Conversations
Where do we find people to talk to about our reading? And what do we say when we find them?
Reading and Living in Uncertainty
What do we mean by uncertainty in reading? And why do we have to look for it?
What I Carry With Me
What questions do we carry with us as we leave Marvell's famous poem?
Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” – Part 4
Who is the speaker in this poem? Who the audience? Who the Marvell?
Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” – Part 3
We trace Marvell's poetry back to its perhaps distressing roots.
Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” – Part 2
What did Marvell know and how did he use it? We look at the sexism in the poem and discover how this provocation is hardly unique in the carpe diem tradition.
Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” – Part 1
What do we do with--how do we read--can we make us of--a classic and famous metaphysical poem which is also misogynistic?
Not My Text! Irony and Ducking Accountability
We consider who is accountable for the text: author, character, or reader, and how writers build a narrative distance in texts to allow irony and meaning to operate (and shirking a bit of accountability).
An Introduction and Irony
What is Literary Nomads, anyway? And what does that have to do with Radiohead, Godzilla, professorial assault, and irony?
Unwoven Interview #3: Poet Kelly Porter
The final of three full interviews from the book launch of my poetry book Unwoven. Here, poet Kelly Porter and I discuss how consciously writers might think about structure.
Unwoven Interview #2: Teacher Sarah Rusinowski
The second of three full interviews from the book launch of my poetry book Unwoven. Here, teacher Sarah Rusinowski considers classroom applications for the book.
Unwoven Interview #1: Dr. Jessica Manuel
The first of three full interviews from the book launch of my poetry book Unwoven. Here, Dr. Jessica Manuel digs at some of the themes and motivations for the book.
Trailer: Literary Nomads
The Waywords Podcast is reborn as Literary Nomads: Wider explorations, broader embraces of reading, and (im)practical thinking!
Waypoint – The Shadow
A Winter Solstice story of 1907, when four women begin to tell stories around the fire. . . .
Waypoint – The Ghost and the Bone-Setter
A Winter Solstice tale by an old Irish storyteller, maybe even believable . . .
Waypoint – “The Doll” by Daphne du Maurier
A Winter Solstice tale of a peculiar kind of terror, this story was recently discovered (2011) among a collection of du Maurier's works completed around the age of 21. This story has mature themes.
Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” – Part 2
We accuse Marvell of verbal assault and find that he was hardly alone.
Waywords Podcast Update – Sept 30
The Waywords Podcast is back with new episodes beginning next week!
Pearson’s Archetypes
Carol Pearson's work following Carl Jung offers us a way to transform our understanding of our own lives, and also how we read the narratives we have so long been taught. I review her strategies for using the archetypes and review her online assessment tool, the Pearson-Marr Archetype Indicator.
Waypoint: Theophile Gautier’s “Clarimonde”
A reading of "Clarimonde," an appropriately creepy story befitting the tradition of Winter Solstice ghost stories. This story in French is titled "La Morte Amoureuse."
Irony and Narrative Distance
Are writers responsible or accountable for what they write? What about readers for what we interpret? How a writer's use of narration can create irony.
Van Gogh – Immersive Exhibits – Episode 4
How do digital art experiences change our reading of original works? Should they be considered a new genre to read?
The Original
Why do we defend a canonical "original?" Where does such an idea come from? We discuss what we mean to place a text with authority and visit The Lord of the Rings and "Fur Elise" along the way.
Adichie – “Tomorrow is Too Far” – Episode 3
How does one read a story which creates its own rules? What else should we ever do? A sociological look at Adichie's intersectionality.
