SLEERICKETS

NB: Another poem (one of Jonathan’s favorites) about having an orange and not wanting to kill yourself.

SLEERICKETS is a podcast about poetry and other intractable problems.

Make a one-time donation (not tax-deductible)
For more SLEERICKETS, subscribe to SECRET SHOW!
Leave the show a rating here!
SLEERICKETS is now on YouTube!
For a frank, anonymous critique on SLEERICKETS, subscribe to the SECRET SHOW and send a poem of no more 32 lines to sleerickets [at] gmail [dot] com

Some of the topics mentioned in this episode:

– Order Brian’s book The Optimists! It’s so good!Now give Brian’s book a 5-star review!
– My chapbook The Soft Black Stars is out now!
– Why Don’t People Like Poetry? What Poetry Do People Like? by Daniel Cowper
– Kingdom of the Clock by Daniel Cowper
– A Review of The Soft Black Stars by Sunil Iyengar
– On Not Knowing How to Start by Sunil Iyengar
– What He Really Wanted by Zina Gomez-Liss
– If by Rudyard Kipling
– Ep 245: The Tuna Incident, ft. Nida Sophasarun
– Giving the Devil His Due by Elijah Perseus Blumov
– September 1, 1939 by W. H. Auden
– On the Inner Nature of Art by Arthur Schopenhauer
– On the origin of poetry by Friedrich Nietzsche

Frequently mentioned names:
– Joshua Mehigan
– Shane McCrae
– A. E. Stallings
– Ryan Wilson
– Morri Creech
– Austin Allen
– Jonathan Farmer
– Zara Raab
– Amit Majmudar
– Ethan McGuire
– Coleman Glenn
– Chris Childers
– Alexis Sears
– JP Gritton
– Alex Pepple
– Ernie Hilbert
– Joanna Pearson
– MattWall
– Steve Knepper
– Helena Feder
– David Yezzi
– Victoria Moul
– Katie Dozier & Tim Green
– George David Clark
– Tristram Fane Saunders
– Philip Metres
– Helena Feder
– Nida Sophasarun

Other Ratbag Poetry Pods:
Poetry Says by Alice Allan
I Hate Matt Wall by Matt Wall
Versecraft by Elijah Perseus Blumov
Advice from an Unknown Poet by Alice Allan & Jonathan Farmer
Ratbag Poetics By David Jalal Motamed

Alice: In Future Posts
Brian: @BPlatzer
Cameron: Minor Tiresias
Matthew: sleerickets [at] gmail [dot] com
Music by ETRNL
Art by Daniel Alexander Smith

SLEERICKETS is a podcast about poetry and other intractable problems.

Make a one-time donation (not tax-deductible)
For more SLEERICKETS, subscribe to SECRET SHOW!
Leave the show a rating here!
SLEERICKETS is now on YouTube!
For a frank, anonymous critique on SLEERICKETS, subscribe to the SECRET SHOW and send a poem of no more 32 lines to sleerickets [at] gmail [dot] com

Some of the topics mentioned in this episode:

– Order Brian’s book The Optimists! It’s so good!Now give Brian’s book a 5-star review!
– My chapbook The Soft Black Stars is out now!
Novice by Nida Sophasarun
An Incomplete Mentorship by Rachel Jamison Webster
Ellen Bryant Voigt

Advice from an Unknown Poet Ep 05. Bad Advice

Ep 244: Possible Horrible Truth, Pt. 1
Nida's poem Violent Femmes
Corniche by Les Murray

Secret show notes

Dead Poets Society (1989)

Paterson (2016)

A Quiet Passion (2016)

Yasujiro Ozu

Last Chance U (2016)

Friday Night Lights

I Walked with a Zombie (1943)

Reality Bites (1994)

Matthew's essay Where the Money Is
The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021)

Film Quarterly

Frequently mentioned names:
– Joshua Mehigan
– Shane McCrae
– A. E. Stallings
– Ryan Wilson
– Morri Creech
– Austin Allen
– Jonathan Farmer
– Zara Raab
– Amit Majmudar
– Ethan McGuire
– Coleman Glenn
– Chris Childers
– Alexis Sears
– JP Gritton
– Alex Pepple
– Ernie Hilbert
– Joanna Pearson
– Matt Wall
– Steve Knepper
– Helena Feder
– David Yezzi
– Victoria Moul
– Katie Dozier & Tim Green
– George David Clark
– Tristram Fane Saunders
– Philip Metres
– Helena Feder
– Nida Sophasarun

Other Ratbag Poetry Pods:
Poetry Says by Alice Allan
I Hate Matt Wall by Matt Wall
Versecraft by Elijah Perseus Blumov
Advice from an Unknown Poet by Alice Allan & Jonathan Farmer
Ratbag Poetics By David Jalal Motamed

Alice: In Future Posts
Brian: @BPlatzer
Cameron: Minor Tiresias
Matthew: sleerickets [at] gmail [dot] com
Music by ETRNL
Art by Daniel Alexander Smith

NB: Sideways was actually co-written by Jim Taylor and Alexander Payne.

SLEERICKETS is a podcast about poetry and other intractable problems.

Make a one-time donation (not tax-deductible)
For more SLEERICKETS, subscribe to SECRET SHOW!
Leave the show a rating here!
SLEERICKETS is now on YouTube!
For a frank, anonymous critique on SLEERICKETS, subscribe to the SECRET SHOW and send a poem of no more 32 lines to sleerickets [at] gmail [dot] com

Some of the topics mentioned in this episode:

– Order Brian’s book The Optimists! It’s so good!Now give Brian’s book a 5-star review!
– My chapbook The Soft Black Stars is out now!
– Poems Beautiful and Useful, ed. Victoria Moul
– To Lucasta, Going to the Wars by Richard Lovelace
– Greater Metropolitan Shatador, ft. Victoria Moul
– The Matrix (1999)
– Jenny, the Halloween Spy by Lillie Patterson
– The Statue of Responsibility (the one about Man’s Search for Meaning)
– The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker
– Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
– The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
– The Optimists by Brian Platzer
– The Mattering Instinct by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein
– The Last Messiah by Peter Zapffe
– The Conspiracy Against the Human Race by Thomas Ligotti
– Inferno I, 32 by Jorge Luis Borges
– Sideways (2004)
– The Gay Science by Friedrich Nietzsche
– Big in Romania, ft. Versecraft (the one where Elijah talks with Alice about The Denial of Death)
– St. Judas by James Wright
– The Mountain Pass, ft. Philip Metres, Part 1 & Part 2
– Tichborne’s Elegy by Chidiock Tichborne
– Happy were he could finish forth his fate by Robert Devereaux
– Ode on Solitude by Alexander Pope
– Ars Poetica by Horace
– Epode ii by Horace
– The Fall of Rome by W. H. Auden
– Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban

Frequently mentioned names:
– Joshua Mehigan
– Shane McCrae
– A. E. Stallings
– Ryan Wilson
– Morri Creech
– Austin Allen
– Jonathan Farmer
– Zara Raab
– Amit Majmudar
– Ethan McGuire
– Coleman Glenn
– Chris Childers
– Alexis Sears
– JP Gritton
– Alex Pepple
– Ernie Hilbert
– Joanna Pearson
– Matt Wall
– Steve Knepper
– Helena Feder
– David Yezzi
– Victoria Moul
– Katie Dozier & Tim Green
– George David Clark
– Tristram Fane Saunders
– Philip Metres
– Helena Feder
– Nida Sophasarun

Other Ratbag Poetry Pods:
Poetry Says by Alice Allan
I Hate Matt Wall by Matt Wall
Versecraft by Elijah Perseus Blumov
Advice from an Unknown Poet by Alice Allan & Jonathan Farmer
Ratbag Poetics By David Jalal Motamed

Alice: In Future Posts
Brian: @BPlatzer
Cameron: Minor Tiresias
Matthew: sleerickets [at] gmail [dot] com
Music by ETRNL
Art by Daniel Alexander Smith

SLEERICKETS is a podcast about poetry and other intractable problems.

Make a one-time donation (not tax-deductible)
For more SLEERICKETS, subscribe to SECRET SHOW!
Leave the show a rating here!
SLEERICKETS is now on YouTube!
For a frank, anonymous critique on SLEERICKETS, subscribe to the SECRET SHOW and send a poem of no more 32 lines to sleerickets [at] gmail [dot] com

Some of the topics mentioned in this episode:

– Order Brian’s book The Optimists! It’s so good!Now give Brian’s book a 5-star review!
– My chapbook The Soft Black Stars is out now!
– On Marriage by Victoria Moul
– Literary Matters 18.2
– Not the Greatest Time to Be a Poet, ft. Horace & Friends, Part 1 & Part 2
– Handbook for the Recently Deceased Poet
– A dolphin for the Dutch; or, is there any verse culture without occasional poems? by Victoria Moul
– Merrily We Roll Along by Stephen Sondheim and George Furth
– The Lower Depths by Maxim Gorky
– Rachel Getting Married (2008)
– Glee (2009–2015)
– Sinners (2025)

Frequently mentioned names:
– Joshua Mehigan
– Shane McCrae
– A. E. Stallings
– Ryan Wilson
– Morri Creech
– Austin Allen
– Jonathan Farmer
– Zara Raab
– Amit Majmudar
– Ethan McGuire
– Coleman Glenn
– Chris Childers
– Alexis Sears
– JP Gritton
– Alex Pepple
– Ernie Hilbert
– Joanna Pearson
– Matt Wall
– Steve Knepper
– Helena Feder
– David Yezzi
– Victoria Moul
– Katie Dozier & Tim Green
– George David Clark
– Tristram Fane Saunders
– Philip Metres

Other Ratbag Poetry Pods:
Poetry Says by Alice Allan
I Hate Matt Wall by Matt Wall
Versecraft by Elijah Perseus Blumov
Advice from an Unknown Poet by Alice Allan & Jonathan Farmer
Ratbag Poetics By David Jalal Motamed

Alice: In Future Posts
Brian: @BPlatzer
Cameron: Minor Tiresias
Matthew: sleerickets [at] gmail [dot] com
Music by ETRNL
Art by Daniel Alexander Smith

SLEERICKETS is a podcast about poetry and other intractable problems.

Make a one-time donation (not tax-deductible)
For more SLEERICKETS, subscribe to SECRET SHOW!
Leave the show a rating here!
SLEERICKETS is now on YouTube!
For a frank, anonymous critique on SLEERICKETS, subscribe to the SECRET SHOW and send a poem of no more 25 lines to sleerickets [at] gmail [dot] com

Some of the topics mentioned in this episode:

– Order Brian’s book The Optimists! It’s so good!Now give Brian’s book a 5-star review!
– My chapbook The Soft Black Stars is out now!
– I’ll be doing the Rattlecast this Monday, April 13, at 8:00 p.m. US Eastern! Check it out!
– Kronos by Joshua Mehigan
– Does it help to be religious? by Victoria Moul
– Horace & Friends by Victoria Moul
– Poems Beautiful and Useful, ed. Victoria Moul
– Poetry, Poetics, Poesia by Tamarah Rockwood
– The Rattlecast went well, I think!
– Church Going by Philip Larkin
– Ep 241: A Serious House
– The Poet’s Vision by Ryan Wilson
– As I Prefer Them Well Cooked Through (from the French of Valérie Rouzeau) trans. Victoria Moul
– A Deer Comes to Mind by Simon Armitage
– The Birth of the Sonnet (from the French of Nicolas Boileau) trans. Elijah Perseus Blumov
– Ken Gordon
– My chapbook’s hatred-filled Goodreads page

Frequently mentioned names:
– Joshua Mehigan
– Shane McCrae
– A. E. Stallings
– Ryan Wilson
– Morri Creech
– Austin Allen
– Jonathan Farmer
– Zara Raab
– Amit Majmudar
– Ethan McGuire
– Coleman Glenn
– Chris Childers
– Alexis Sears
– JP Gritton
– Alex Pepple
– Ernie Hilbert
– Joanna Pearson
– Matt Wall
– Steve Knepper
– Helena Feder
– David Yezzi
– Victoria Moul
– Katie Dozier & Tim Green
– George David Clark
– Tristram Fane Saunders
– Philip Metres

Other Ratbag Poetry Pods:
Poetry Says by Alice Allan
I Hate Matt Wall by Matt Wall
Versecraft by Elijah Perseus Blumov
Advice from an Unknown Poet by Alice Allan & Jonathan Farmer
Ratbag Poetics By David Jalal Motamed

Alice: In Future Posts
Brian: @BPlatzer
Cameron: Minor Tiresias
Matthew: sleerickets [at] gmail [dot] com
Music by ETRNL
Art by Daniel Alexander Smith