Beyond the Verse

In this week’s episode of “Beyond the Verse,” the official podcast of PoemAnalysis.com and Poetry+, Maiya and Joe celebrate the podcast’s 50th episode by turning to the work of Louise Glück, one of the most distinctive and celebrated voices in contemporary American poetry. They begin with Glück’s life and career, from her birth in Long Island in 1943 to her early struggles, literary influences, and gradual development as a poet. The episode places special attention on the long arc of her care...

In this week’s episode of Beyond the Verse, the official podcast of PoemAnalysis.com and Poetry+, Maiya and Joe turn their attention to the poetry of Ireland, exploring how history, landscape, and myth shape its voice. They begin with a wide historical lens, tracing key moments that influence Irish poetry, from early cultural identity to colonization, Cromwell’s legacy, and the Great Famine. The hosts show how these events are not just background, but deeply tied to how Irish writers understa...

In this week’s episode of Beyond the Verse, the official podcast of PoemAnalysis.com and Poetry+, Maiya and Joe focus on the role of the Poet Laureate, using Simon Armitage’s career and poetry to consider what it means for one writer to speak to and for a nation. They begin with a brief history of the UK Poet Laureateship, tracing its shift from a role tied closely to royal praise into one that engages with public life, national feeling, and major cultural moments. Along the way, they reflect...

In this week’s episode of Beyond the Verse, the official podcast of PoemAnalysis.com and Poetry+, Maiya and Joe kick off episode two of their Imagist mini series by turning to Hilda Doolittle, better known as H.D., and asking what made her one of the movement’s most important voices. They begin with H.D.’s life, from Pennsylvania to London, and the close, complicated circle that shaped early Imagism, including Ezra Pound, Richard Aldington, and William Carlos Williams. The conversation also l...

In this week’s episode of Beyond the Verse, the official podcast of PoemAnalysis.com and Poetry+, Maiya and Joe celebrate Valentine’s Day with a sweeping journey through love poetry across more than two thousand years. Beginning with Sappho’s ‘Hymn to Aphrodite,’ Joe traces the devotional roots of romantic verse, where love is bound up with gods, ritual, and longing. From there, the hosts move through Robert Burns’s ‘A Red, Red Rose,’ exploring how symbols like the red rose and vows that last...

In this week’s episode of Beyond the Verse, the official podcast of PoemAnalysis.com and Poetry+, Maiya and Joe discuss Ai’s ‘The Man with the Saxophone’, a city poem that captures connection in the quiet streets of New York before sunrise. After Maiya’s reading, they talk about Ai’s background and her remarkable voice as a poet. Born Florence Anthony in 1947 in Texas, she later chose the name Ai, meaning “love” in Japanese. With ancestry that included Japanese, Native American, Black, and Ir...

In this week’s episode of Beyond the Verse, the official podcast of PoemAnalysis.com and Poetry+, Maiya and Joe focus on Christina Rossetti’s ‘Remember,’ one of the most enduring sonnets of the Victorian period. After Maiya’s reading, they look at Rossetti’s background: her Italian literary family, her early breakdown at fourteen, her deep commitment to Anglo-Catholic faith, and her choice to remain unmarried despite several proposals. These details help frame the intensity and restraint with...

In this week’s episode of “Beyond the Verse,” the official podcast of PoemAnalysis.com and Poetry+, Maiya and Joe dive into Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s haunting masterpiece, ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’. They begin with Coleridge’s life and the birth of the Romantic movement, situating the poem within its 1798 publication in Lyrical Ballads. The hosts explore Coleridge’s radical youth, his bond with Wordsworth, and the wider cultural context of exploration, superstition, and shifting faith...

In this week’s episode of “Beyond the Verse,” the official podcast of PoemAnalysis.com and Poetry+, Maiya and Joe turn their attention to Robert Browning’s chilling dramatic monologue, ‘My Last Duchess’. Beginning with Browning’s life and context, they trace how the poem emerged from Victorian England while also drawing on real historical figures such as Alfonso II, Duke of Ferrara. The hosts unpack how Browning builds a psychological portrait of the Duke, weaving themes of control, jealousy,...

In this week’s episode of “Beyond the Verse,” the official podcast of PoemAnalysis.com and Poetry+, Joe and Maiya celebrate the show’s one-year anniversary, reflecting on the journey so far, the lessons learned, and the evolving style of their in-depth poetry discussions. They share listener questions, revealing their proudest moments, favorite episodes, and the poets who have surprised them most over the past twelve months. From early highlights like Danez Smith’s episode to thematic deep di...

In this episode of Beyond the Verse, the official podcast of PoemAnalysis.com and Poetry+, hosts Joe and Maiya examine Alfred Lord Tennyson's iconic war poem 'The Charge of the Light Brigade.' Written just weeks after the disastrous cavalry charge during the Crimean War in October 1854, this poem dramatically reshaped the Victorian cultural conversation around military sacrifice and heroism. Joe and Maiya explore how Tennyson, as Poet Laureate, transformed a military blunder that initially em...

In this week’s episode of Beyond the Verse, the official podcast of PoemAnalysis.com and Poetry+, Joe and Maiya look into John Keats’s haunting meditation on mortality and art, 'Ode to a Nightingale.' Written during the poet’s final years, this celebrated ode encapsulates the fleeting nature of life and the immortal legacy of beauty. Joe and Maiya explore how Keats uses the nightingale’s song as a symbol of timeless artistic expression, contrasting it with the poet’s own fears of death and ob...