Recorded live on location at... my backyard. It was a lovely morning, and so I decided to read a poem. I didn't mention it in the recording because, well because I didn't think about it. I was thinking about Ryan's great poem. And so I recorded

Episode 4.16 Three Poems by Stephen Crane

Apr 21st, 2023 12m 38s

Recorded on West Mountain, just west of Spanish Fork, Utah. It was blustery and cold, but kind of weirdly beautiful regardless. Beautiful in its desolate ugliness, I guess.The painting I mentioned is indeed by Francisco Goya, but I got the name

Episode 4.15 Wordsworth’s “Lines Written in Early Spring”

Apr 19th, 2023 13m 32s

Recorded by the shore of Utah Lake on a windy but pleasant day, though not as pleasant as what Wordsworth described what with his green bower and all. My favorite part of this recording is the sounds of the killdeer, which I wish were louder, b

Episode 4.14 Walter Scott’s “Innominatus”

Apr 18th, 2023 10m 23s

Recorded on the Watchman Overlook in Zion National Park. There are always too may people at Zion, but I found a spot where I could have some quiet privacy and record a poem. Unfortunately, technology was conspiring against me, and so this sound

Episode 4.13 Thomas Hardy’s “The Convergence of the Twain”

Apr 15th, 2023 10m 23s

Recorded in a tiny little canyon that I never learned the name for, but it was peaceful and quiet. Everyone should have a peaceful, quiet little place to read a poem every now and again. As I mention in the commentary, this is interesting becau

Episode 4.12 W. H. Auden’s “Musee des Beaux Arts”

Apr 15th, 2023 10m 29s

Recorded sitting next to some trickling water just outside the mouth of Hellhole Canyon, in Ivins, Utah. In part, my analysis was a chance for me to talk a little about my process in reading a poem—the messy stuff that gets cut out in my editin

Episode 4.11 Jim Harrison’s “I Believe”

Apr 13th, 2023 11m 31s

A reading and short analysis of Jim Harrison's poem, recorded live in [Hellhole canyon](https://hikestgeorge.com/hiking-trails/hellhole-canyon/), outside St. George, Utah. #### TEXT OF POEM"I Believe" by Jim Harrison, from his book [_In Search

Episode 4.10 E. E. Cummings’s “sweet spring is your”

Apr 12th, 2023 12m 36s

Three poems (more than two!) poems by E. E. Cummings recorded on the shore of the Virgin River in northern Arizona, at the edge of the Mojave Desert. I was sitting on a big, jutting chunk of red sandstone, surrounded by Joshua trees and cacti.T

Episode 4.09 An Easter reading of Rudyard Kipling’s “A Nativity”

Apr 9th, 2023 15m 32s

Recorded on site at the tiny, old cemetery in Charleston, Utah. Some of my ancestors are buried there, which makes it relevant for me at least, on this particular day.You can find some interesting commentary about what Kipling might have been t

Episode 4.08 Mark Gibbons’s “My Life as a Capitalist”

Apr 8th, 2023 19m 30s

Recorded live and on site right outside Utah Lake State Park, which means that there are also airplanes flying and birds chirping and other people walking. I have edited out the other people walking, but the rest of it is all here.[Mark Gibbons

Episode 4.07 John Donne’s “Good Friday 1613, Riding Westward”

Apr 7th, 2023 14m 15s

Five or six years ago, I read this poem here on Lucky Words. This is a new recording—recorded, edited, and uploaded on Good Friday 2023—looking at the best Good Friday poem ever written.Who am I kidding? Every poem by John Donne is the best eve

Episode 4.06 Dylan Thomas’s “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower”

Apr 7th, 2023 12m 16s

Redorded on location on the trail to Corona Arch outside Moab, Utah, in May of 2022. Some members of my family were with me, and I recorded in snatches while we were hiking—which is why there is some heckling going on. I tried to edit most of i

Episode 4.05 Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art”

Apr 6th, 2023 10m 11s

Recorded on location at Arches National Park in Moab, Utah. Specifically, at the La Sal mountains look out—not that I could see anything.While this is a lovely poem, it's also another poem that I recorded sitting down. At least this time I wasn

Episode 4.04

Apr 5th, 2023 16m 11s

A very different thing today: I'm stuck indoors and so this was recorded at home. So weird. Still, I don't think you'll get bored, because I get all artsy: give it a listen and let me know how much you like (or dislike) it.

Episode 4.03: John Keats’s “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer”

Apr 3rd, 2023 10m 53s

When I was in high school and probably completely insufferable, I used to walk around with a book of poetry in my back pocket. Keats was a big favorite then. I'm not sure why; I mean he is great, but it's not exactly stuff that should thrill an

Episode 4.02: Czeslaw Milosz’s “And Yet The Books”

Apr 3rd, 2023 9m 46s

Hiking in the snow is always harder than hiking on dirt, but there's still snow on the ground and so I'll take what I can get. The cold does present one particular difficulty, of course, that it makes my nose run and I have to edit out about a

Episode 4.01: John Ashbery’s “Just Walking Around”

Apr 2nd, 2023 9m 25s

Reading and analysis of this poem by John Ashbery, while hiking in the Utah mountains

Episode 3.11: Gwendolyn Brooks' "The Preacher Ruminates Behind the Sermon"

Jun 7th, 2019 9m 49s

This is kind of a lonely poem for a lonely day hiking. Not lonely, exactly, but very alone. I spent probably five hours and saw, maybe, three human beings. It was good. I like to be alone.Sometimes. I also like to be with those I love. When I a

Episode 310: Alexander Pope's "Ode on Solitude"

May 11th, 2019 10m 16s

More adventures in Canyonlands National Park in southern Utah.I hike to be quiet and alone. This hike took me on the White Rim Trail, one of the destination trails for 4x4 affectionados. Which is about the opposite of me. I like my peace and qu

Episode 309: Karl Shaprio's "Interlude III"

May 3rd, 2019 10m 9s

This recording was originally much longer than what I've got for you here. I took a fork in a trail which led me to an overlook that was so magnificent, so overwhelming, that I just stood there, mostly mute. It's vastness, it's quiet emptiness:

Episode 308: Longfellow's "My Cathedral"

Apr 27th, 2019 18m 46s

I spent a few days in Moab, camping and hiking and writing and recording. It was lovely.This episode was recorded as I was hiking in Canyonlands National Park on the Murphy loop. I did edit out some long stretches of just me walking (not excatl

Episode 307: Amy Lowell's "Fenway Park"

Apr 22nd, 2019 9m 55s

One of the beautiful days in April in Utah, talking about a beautiful sport in Boston. (OK, this year, there's very little beautiful about baseball in Boston, but last year was great and there's always next year.) Some American poetry today, be

Episode 306: Margaret Atwood's "You Begin"

Apr 16th, 2019 9m 14s

On a trail up American Fork canyon, listening to the water rushing down the mountain as it melts from the snowpack. It's mesmerizing. I know it just sounds like a static hiss on the recording: maybe you can hear it as a natural sound and not ju

Episode 305: Shakespeare's sonnet 126

Apr 13th, 2019 10m 22s

While one a short hike right near the border between Utah and Idaho, I tried to capture the songs of all the [Western Meadowlarks](https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/western-meadowlark) around me. If you listen closely, you can just hear

Episode 304: Emily Dickinson's "Tell all the truth but tell it slant"

Apr 11th, 2019 6m 1s

This was recorded on a super windy day in Moab. I didn't realize just how much it had affected the recording until I tried to listen to it at home. I tried to make it listenable in Audacity and GarageBand, and even still it sounds pretty lousy.