The Poetry Fix

Is it dangerous to cling to the departed, when it is time for them to pass into the afterlife? The folk poet of “The Wife of Usher’s Well” seems to think so. Join Erika Kyba for the full episode and analysis.

If you've completed high school English, it's likely you've heard of the standard "invocation of the muse" invoked by epic poets such as Homer and Virgil. What would happen if a poet used this invocation to frame a poem about a wedding, rather than adventure and war? Spencer's "Epithalamion" accomplishes just that; join Erika Kyba to encounter this love ballad.

Does absence make the heart grow fonder? John Donne, our poet who believes so strongly in the united souls of lovers, asks himself what happens to this harmony when the lovers are separated. Join Erika Kyba for a reading and analysis of this epic love poem.

When you love someone, do you love them with your soul, mind, or body? Is love by one of the faculties superior to that of the others? John Donne meditates on this theme in "The Ecstasy." Join Erika Kyba for a reading and analysis of this poem.

Is it possible to have enough love to be content? Can a Christian be content with God's love, being that God is infinite, or will he always crave more of God? And what relationship does God's love for us have with our love for others? John Donne wrestles with all these questions and more in "Since She Whom I Lov'd Hath Paid Her Last Debt." Tune in for Erika Kyba's reading of this complex poem.

Can you know others without knowing yourself? This is the question which David Whyte interrogates in "Start Close In," as he examines what it means to cross over into the unknown territory of The Other. Join Erika Kyba to delve into sound advice...with a poetic twist. 

We tend to think of beauty in terms of purity and proportion, but Hopkins upends those conventional ideas in "Pied Beauty." Instead, he proposes that God "fathers-forth" his beauty in the irregular and variable. Join Erika Kyba for her reading of why Hopkins celebrates sublimity in the strange.

In today's episode of The Poetry Fix, tune in for further musings from George Herbert on the Eucharist, Christ's sacrifice, and man's orientation towards his Creator. Join Erika Kyba as she analyzes the themes of Herbert's "The Banquet" and reads it aloud.

“Do you want to know?” That’s the question that undergirds George Herbert’s “The Agony.” Join Erika Kyba to encounter this poem, in which George Herbert explores the metaphysics of sin and love.

Do you seek beauty, or do you fear it? In "Kubla Khan," Coleridge places most of humanity on the second side of that equation; tune in to hear Erika Kyba's analysis and find out why.

Have you ever enjoyed a time in your life (or lived through a period of history) marked by prosperity, abundance, and opulence—yet felt a certain unease, especially when reminded of chaotic forces that could upset the bliss you find yourself in? Samuel Taylor Coleridge might have something to say about that. Tune in for Erika Kyba's analysis of Coleridge's psychedelic, fairy-tale-poem: Kubla Khan.

How do you imagine God in relation to yourself? Is He a distant entity, to be admired from without? Or does He seek to be with you, making His way into your inner soul? Tune in to hear George Herbert's answer to this question in "The Holy Communion," read and analyzed by Erika Kyba.

Perhaps you've encountered YouTube videos appearing on your feed to tell you to get off YouTube. In today’s episode of The Poetry Fix, join Erika Kyba to encounter the poetic version of this phenomenon in Wordsworth's "The Tables Turned." Wordsworth seems to exhort the student to do away with his books, seeking nature instead...but is this all that our poet has to say?

In today’s episode of The Poetry Fix, join Erika Kyba for another bilingual episode. She reads La Fontaine's famous "The Grasshopper and the Ant" in French and English. Tune in to discover a new twist on the moral that you might have thought you knew.

In today’s episode of The Poetry Fix, join Erika Kyba for a bilingual episode. She reads La Fontaine's "The Oak and the Reed" in French and English, exploring a poem-parable that discusses the fall of the mighty and the survival of the humble.

In today’s episode of The Poetry Fix, join Erika Kyba to read Emily Dickinson's "I Taste a Liquour Never Brewed." It's a poem about getting drunk on the beauty of the universe...which the poet believes has fundamental, eschatological importance.

In today’s episode of The Poetry Fix, join Erika Kyba to read Galway Kinnell's "How Many Nights," the work of a modern existentialist poet. We all remember our childhood fears of the dark, and how they dissipated with the sunrise. What are we to do, though, with a more adult, existential version of this experience?

In today’s episode of The Poetry Fix, join Erika Kyba to read Emily Dickinson's "Nobody Knows This Little Rose." It's a deceptively simple little poem, in which the poet wrestles with one of the most profound human tragedies.

In today’s episode of The Poetry Fix, join Erika Kyba to read the continuation of Comus and the Lady's first encounter. We have already seen that our heroine has a very high view of her own powers of virtue and discernment...but her naiveté is exposed in this episode, as she blindly puts her faith in the flattering Comus.

In today’s episode of The Poetry Fix, join Erika Kyba to read the continuation of Comus and the Lady's first encounter. We have already seen that our heroine has a very high view of her own powers of virtue and discernment...but her naiveté is exposed in this episode, as she blindly puts her faith in the flattering Comus.

In today’s episode of The Poetry Fix, join Erika Kyba to read the excerpt of Milton's "Comus" in which Comus and the Lady are united for the first time. Erika finds that Comus's reaction to the Lady's song parallels one of Milton's most famous scenes in Paradise Lost...

In today’s episode of The Poetry Fix, join Erika Kyba in the journey through Milton’s Comus as the leading lady makes her first appearance. The lady presents herself as a courageous paragon of virtue, but the poet opens up her view of morality to some questions.

Join Erika Kyba to encounter the rising action of Milton's Comus, as the wicked spirit Comus hears the approach of a noble lady and plots to seduce her by passing himself off as a harmless shepherd. The lady enters, not finding Comus at first, but wary of the sounds of revelry that she heard from this part of the forest. Erika analyzes the spiritual drama that is afoot under the trappings of an attempted seduction story.

Join Erika Kyba to read an excerpt from Milton's Comus, in which the titular trickster spirit is introduced. She discusses Comus's use of rhetoric, mixing the pleasurable with the destructive and so using it to bait his listener.

Join Erika Kyba to conclude reading William Knox's "Mortality." Today, Erika discusses the difficulty of preserving the memory of the dead.

Join Erika Kyba for an unflinching look at death as she reads William Knox's "Mortality." Our poet reminds us that all of our earthly triumphs are necessarily ephemeral—but what does that tell us about how we should choose to live our lives?

Join Erika Kyba to encounter "Old Ironsides," the famous elegy that saved the USS Constitution from being scrapped. She discusses how masterfully Holmes pits mercenary concerns against a respect for what is beautiful and noble, weaving in themes of national identity throughout the poem.

Join Erika Kyba for a celebration of Easter in the conclusion of The Dream of the Rood. She analyzes how the Passion, in the poet's vision, exceeds the boundaries of history and continues to move our lives.

Join Erika Kyba and continue your Lenten journey through the medieval Crucifixion poem, "The Dream of the Rood." In today's excerpt, the poet crafts a parallel between the Cross of Christ and Mary, His mother. Erika analyzes why the poet has chosen to link these two figures together, and what this poetic image says about suffering and glory.

Join Erika Kyba and continue your Lenten journey through the medieval Crucifixion poem, "The Dream of the Rood." In today's excerpt, the poet begins to pull in more and more anachronistic medieval imagery to describe the Crucifixion. What is the significance of this artistic choice? Get your weekly poetry fix and find out!

Today, we continue our Lenten reflections on The Dream of the Rood. Join Erika Kyba as she discusses how the poet imagines the Cross as Christ's shield partner in battle. The poet leads us away from identifying suffering as the villain of the Passion, showing us the bigger picture: the Passion was always a battle against sin. And the Cross is our ally in this battle, not our enemy.

Today, we enter into the Lenten season by reading The Dream of the Rood. Join Erika Kyba to meditate on the poet's reframing of the Crucifixion's tragedy.

Today, we continue our journey through Spencer's Faerie Queene. Join Erika Kyba to analyze the forest symbolism that Spencer uses to set up the themes that will pervade this canto, and strap in as the Knight of the Red Cross seeks his first battle in the Den of Error.

Today, we continue our journey through Spencer's Faerie Queene. Join Erika Kyba as she analyzes how Spencer draws a connection between the poem's female lead, Una, and the symbol of the Lamb of God. We talk about the importance of not judging Una as your typical damsel in distress too quickly; she's a character that might surprise you.

Today, we continue our journey through Spencer's Faerie Queene. Erika Kyba discusses some of Spencer's typical conventions, such as introducing characters by their appearances and actions, allowing the reader to judge their behavior before the poet names them.

Today, Erika Kyba introduces you to Spencer's Faerie Queene. In this episode, we read the Prologue to the Legend of the Knight of the Red Cross (narrated by the lovely Sophia Kyba), and discuss Spencer's intriguing choice of Greek gods to invoke as his muses.

Today, Erika Kyba reads La Fontaine's "The Milk-Maid and the Milk-Pail," a witty and practical French fable about the danger of getting carried away in a daydream.

Today, Erika Kyba reads Emily Dickinson's "We Should not Mind so Small a Flower," in which poet uses the flower of a mustard seed as a metaphor for God instantiating the Kingdom of Heaven through the smallest and most easily overlooked means.

Today, Erika Kyba reads Arthur Sze's "Architect's Watercolor." This is a poem that toes the line between potentiality and reality.

Today, Erika Kyba continues to analyze Milton's "Comus," and we learn what makes the wicked spirit, Comus so dangerous: he menaces the rational faculties of men, and tempts them, through inordinate pleasure, to animality and indignity. Alexandra Comus joins us once again to narrate the part of the Attendant Spirit.