ME READING STUFF
by Robyn O'Neil
This is simply me reading stuff. Poems, essays, letters, recipes, and whatever else feels alive in the moment — mixed with my own rambling thoughts, laughter, and honest reflections on life, art, and everything in between.Think of it as having lunch with a good friend: warm, unfiltered, and admittedly a little bit strange. A space where we can escape together with books, encourage each other, and feel a little less alone.Sincerely,Robyn O’Neil
Episodes
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Episode 418: Summer Break, Continued Delusions, and a Poem by Joshua Garvelink
"He had been full of the idea so long, dreamed it right through to the end, waited with his teeth set, so to speak, at an inconceivable pitch of intensity." ~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby "I'm ready to take over the airwaves." ~Me, The Great Delusion LINKS +Josh Garvelink's SUBSTACK and...
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Episode 417: C.K. Williams & Definitions of "Quiet"
Thanking Mediocre Nurses, A Play by Robyn O'Neil ACT 1: Transparency about a failing enterprise ACT 2: Two questions and an answer ACT 3: Keep Dying, Keep Writing it Down ACT 4: Get Quiet LINKS +Buy C.K. Williams' Writers Writing Dying +Buy The Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus +My SHOP +My...
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Episode 416: ❣️This Podcast's 20th Anne Carson Episode❣️
“We are amazing beings. We are neighbors of fire.” - Anne Carson Continuing to reread from some of ME READING STUFF's top rated books/writers, we celebrate living legend Anne Carson and Autobiography of Red, yet again. This is the 20th episode dedicated to Anne Carson, and it certainly won't be…
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Episode 415: 🏀Celebrating the Poetry of Sportstalk with Fan Favorite: Erratic Fire, Erratic Passion!🎾
This week, we return to everyone's favorite poetry book, Erratic Fire, Erratic Passion: The Poetry of Sportstalk by Pasha Malla and Jeff Parker. In Metta World Peace's poem, he discusses the difference between elbow and shell pasta. Anna Kournikova's poem talks about how many boyfriends she’s…
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Episode 414: 🎙️The 11th Anniversary Special: The Poem That Started It All – "The Man on the Dump"
🎙️ The 11th Anniversary of ME READING STUFF 🎂 Dear listener, Well, we've officially been kicking it for ELEVEN YEARS. Through vasectomies, divorce, mystery illnesses, breakdowns, fevers, estrangement, Covid, moves, near-death experiences, remarriage, Las Vegas hotel rooms, heart surgeries,...
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Episode 413: Dionne Brand – "Islands Vanish" from Nomenclature
This week marks the return to THROWING BOOKS ACROSS THE ROOM!!!! So exciting. Dionne Brand's "Islands Vanish" really had me feeling all sorts of things. It was a pleasure to read it to you. I extend appreciation to her for "hunting for slave castles with a pencil for explosives." Not many hunt so...
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Episode 412: 📚Wendell Berry, Building Altars & Exhaustion
This week, I read to you from a 1992 poetry anthology called The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart, edited by Robert Bly, James Hillman and Michael Meade. Wendell Berry's poem "Ripening" leads to a discussion about death and altar-building. I also kick a few people out of the podcast 😲, and bemoan…
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Episode 411: Taschen's The Book of Symbols: The Color Gray
"I know how furiously your heart is beating." ~Wallace Stevens, The Gray Room "The tense American nerve relaxed. I lived with a gray quietness that let the mind grow inward like a root." ~Paul Engle LINKS: Taschen's The Book of Symbols My Website My Shop My Substack My Instagram
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Episode 410: Charles Simic & Anne Carson – A Century of Poetry in The New Yorker (1925-2025)
On today's episode, I read from a MASSIVE birthday gift, A Century of Poetry in The New Yorker (1925 – 2025), Edited by Kevin Young. The readings are: Charles Simic's "This Morning" Anne Carson's "Epithalamium NYC" LINKS Buy A Century of Poetry in The New Yorker MY NEW WEBSITE Check out my friend...
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Episode 409: Andy Warhol - "Atmosphere" from The Philosophy of Andy Warhol
"I love to walk but I can't I love to swim but I can't I love to sit in the sun but I can't I love to smell the flowers but I can't I love to play tennis but I can't I love to water-ski but I can't" ~Andy Warhol "Lime flavored sparkling waters taste like Fruity Pebbles." ~Me LINKS: Buy The...
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Episode 408: Mason Currey – Daily Rituals: Women at Work (Octavia Butler & Martha Graham)
"I enjoy people best if I can be alone much of the time." – Octavia Butler "Talk is a privilege and one must deny oneself that privilege." – Martha Graham "I love saying "refrigerator."" – Me LINKS Pick up Mason Currey's Daily Ritual Books Follow Mason Currey's Substack Follow me on Instagram Buy...
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Episode 407: Laurie Anderson - O Superman
"Besides all those whaling details, Moby Dick is about someone who's looking for something so huge, something they've wanted all their life, yet they know when they find it, it will kill them." ~Laurie Anderson "Do you clean yourself well?" ~Me LINKS: Listen/Watch Laurie Anderson's O Superman My...
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Episode 406: Mystery Poem Found in a Library Book
Today's anonymous poem was found in my library book about Medieval Art and was dated Feb 7, 1958! How exciting is that?!? I also answer some listener questions & ask you some of my own in everyone's favorite segment - Question Corner. I wish you well, I hope you can gain acceptance of...
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Episode 405: Fuyue Anzai, Walt Whitman & Allen Ginsberg
Today, I explain how I use my fists to understand the days in a month. I regret (again) not learning Greek or its myths. We read Fuyue Anzai, Walt Whitman and Allen Ginsberg. We celebrate taking walks, aggressively. And something about Doritos. LINKS: Buy The Penguin Book of the Prose Poem HERE....
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Episode 404: A Michael Silverblatt Tribute & a David Markson Reading
"I am one who does not think that the Earth was made for us. I think that we are first to last strangers on it, and that it takes us a good first half of our lives just to get used to gravity. That it's not easy." -Michael Silverblatt LINKS: Visit the Bookworm ARCHIVES. Buy David Markson books on...
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Episode 403: Anne Boyer & Floor Piles
"I think mostly about clothes, sex, food, and seasonal variations. I have done so much to be ordinary and made a record of this: first I was born, next I was a child, then I learned things and did things and loved and had those who loved me and often felt alone. My body was sometimes well, then...
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Episode 402: The Public Domain Review & The Bold and the Beautiful
"Twisting it in the right hand - I love another." via The Public Domain Review "Donna Logan felt badly for her younger sister, Katie, ,who was suffering from acne." via The Bold and the Beautiful: 10th Anniversary Celebration LINKS Visit The Public Domain Review Watch The Bold and the Beautiful…
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Episode 401: An After Dark Special! Vasko Popa for Valentine's Day
Tonight, we have a Recommendation Corner (it's been a while!), a return to Vasko Popa, praise for Valentine's Day whether you like it or not, and some new sound clips 🖤 And I'll miss you forever, Billy. I'm devestated. Love, Robyn p.s. can you believe I'm back for a 3rd week in a row? I can't!...
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Episode 400: Geri Jewell - I'm Walking as Straight as I Can: Transcending Disability in Hollywood and Beyond
If you grew up in the 70s and 80s like me, you certainly know Geri Jewell. If you don't know the full breadth of her career, you will for sure know "Cousin Geri", Blair Warner's comedian cousin with cerebral palsy from The Facts of Life. I have adored her from the first moment I saw her on TV…
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Episode 399: The World Book Encyclopedia - The Letter "A"
Today, we head back to Encyclopedia Corner, exploring the letter "A". Also discussed: The Prinzhorn Collection, Jean Dubuffet, Hypergraphia, Emma Hauck, Ants, Animals, The San Fernando Valley, Cardiology, and Cockroaches, Nudity, and Adoption. LINKS: My Substack My Instagram
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Episode 398: Agnes Martin - On Beauty
"My paintings are certainly nonobjective. They're just horizontal lines." - Agnes Martin "Oh really, bitch? I don't think so!" - My Body LINKS: Learn more about artist Agnes Martin HERE. Buy "On Beauty" by Agnes Martin through PACE. Buy "Oxford Dictionary of Difficult Words" on INDIEBOUND.
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Episode 397: Nabokov, Merriam-Webster & Bad Documentaries
"The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness." - Vladimir Nabokov "I love ruled paper." - Me LINKS: Buy The Best American Essays of The Century Buy Merriam-Webster's Vocabulary Builder Learn more...
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Episode 396: MY 10th ANNIVERSARY EPISODE❣️ / C.K. Williams - Writers Writing Dying
Dear You, We last spoke in January and I've missed you; I've missed this. A lot has happened. A lot has not. Let's pick back up where we left off, but let's make it better and more loving this time. Let's not let the hoards of negatives overshadow the rest — the ever-present glimmerings of light.…
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Episode 395: Lydia Davis - Priority (Again) & Answer Corner
"It is certainly true that the larger and older the living thing is, the harder it is to know how to care for it." - Lydia Davis "I barely know what a uterus is for God's sake." - Me LINKS: Buy "The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis" HERE. Become a Subscriber on My Substack! Become a Paid…
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Episode 394: The Life of Northern Calloway (David from Sesame Street)
"Help! I'm David from Sesame Street, and they're trying to kill me!" - Northern Calloway "Grab the broom of anger and drive off the beast of fear." - Zora Neale Hurston LINKS: The Wikipedia article on Northern Calloway My Substack Damien Jurado's record label - Maraqopa
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Episode 393: Joshua Rivkin - In the Black (on Cy Twombly)
Praying for apathy, deciding towards easy. Love, Robyn LINKS: Buy Joshua Rivkin's Chalk: The Art and Erasure of Cy Twombly Here is my SUBSTACK! Here is my website. The Cy Twombly Gallery Robert Rauschenberg Jasper Johns Henry Darger
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Episode 392: Steve Zirnkilton - In the Criminal Justice System
"The people who have made me feel the worst were always my best friends." -Detective Olivia Benson "I'll never sell 14 million like Hammer, I just wanna do a good Ice-T show." - Ice-T LINKS: Get your drawing! Subscribe to my Substack Watch the Driver 23 / Atlas Moth Trailer Watch the Fitzcarraldo...
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Episode 391: Sick Day
Dear Boss, I am sick. Love, Robyn
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Episode 390: Leonard Cohen - Book of Mercy
A - ABLE-MINDED B - BICUSPID C - CROSS-EXAMINATION K - Keeping You Company With love, Robyn LINKS: Well, I've never linked to Amazon for books, but that seems to be the only place I see Leonard Cohen's Book of Mercy, so head over there to buy it! There's also a set of several of his books on…
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Episode 389: Copy & Paste: The Cold Episode
LINKS: My Substack Buy my book HERE. Watch American Movie HERE.
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Episode 388: Encyclopedia Corner - Lighting & Lightning
"Lighting ranks as the most important factor in seeing." "Writing letters helps bring friends closer together." "Plans for lightning should provide the greatest possible light needed for any task." "Be sure than every statement you make is correct." "A bolt of lightning can kill a person or start…
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Episode 387: Letters of Note / E.B. White / My Voiceover
"I must decline, for secret reasons." ~E.B. White LINKS: My Substack See Letters of Note on Instagram ME READING STUFF shirts at the bottom of THIS page. California Scrub Jay Stellar's Jay
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Episode 386: Anne Carson - Short Talks
"A trotting animal can restore red hearts to red." - Anne Carson (Short Talk on My Task) LINKS: Buy Anne Carson's Short Talks Listen to Anne Carson's reading on "Shade" (it's at the 19 minute mark, but you should listen to the entire thing) Listen to me reading her writing on Shade from years…
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Episode 385: Mary Ruefle & John Clare
"In the end I would rather wonder than know." -Mary Ruefle LINKS: Follow me on Substack: https://robynoneil.substack.com/ Buy "Madness, Rack, and Honey" "Red" read by Mary Ruefle herself! Buy "I Am: The Selected Poetry of John Clare"
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Episode 384: John D'Agata & Studio Update
D'Agata writes in the introduction to The Making of the American Essay: "The world provides non-fiction, and humans provide the rest." My own work has been dealing endlessly with the problems humans incessantly seem to provide. In desperation, I now pray that for the rest of my days, my eyes can...
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Episode 383: Franz Kafka & Katt Williams
"'I have never been one of those who cares about happiness. Happiness is a strange notion. I am just not made for it." - Werner Herzog "People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they're doing." - Dale Carnegie "People rarely have fun in what they're doing unless they succeed." - Me...
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Episode 382: Catullus 85
Tonight, I give you a reading from New Directions' Love Poems of Catullus and a reiteration of my preference for the CH Sissen translation of Catullus 85. Art event or not, put it all on a Carr's Table Water Cracker. And if you have an interest in words, take 2 minutes to try this podcast out:...
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Episode 381: Emily Dickinson, Petrichor & Me
An After Dark Episode! Tonight I read from Emily Dickinson's Final Harvest: https://bookshop.org/p/books/final-harvest-poems-emily-dickinson/110106?ean=9780316184151 I explain how this book by Alex Soojung Kim Pang both solved my life & ignited a nervous breakdown the size of Pangaea:...
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Episode 380: "Part 1: Party" featuring words by Charles Simic & Melody Beattie
"Go inside a stone. That would be my way. Let somebody else become a dove." -Charles Simic Buy absolutely anything by Charles Simic. Buy "The Language of Letting Go" Daily Meditations by Melody Beattie. And thank you for being with me today. I've missed you guys. Love, Robyn
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🎁 Friday Night Giftisode 🌮
With love, Robyn LINKS: The De Palma trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97XoMjwoZ5w Indiebound for buying absolute any of the books I mention, always: https://www.indiebound.org/ Cowboy Tommy // Cowboy Teddy Bear // Electric Fireplace: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSqVnHN3q9E
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P.S. 1: How my dog Henry's DNA ended up at the home of a Vanderpump Rules cast member's apartment.
THE ROBYN'S GATE PODCAST on PATREON!
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❤️🩹 ME READING STUFF ➸ ROBYN'S GATE ❤️🩹
🌁 THE ROBYN'S GATE PODCAST 🌁 patreon.com/ROBYNSGATE
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Hello from Robyn and Ricci - An AFTER DARK! episode of ME READING STUFF
"See God, it ain't me. They 'bout to start a world war, I'm just tryna practice peace." - Leikeli47 "How the hell you walk outta Heaven?" - Leikeli 47 "LEARN A TRADE" - Me "I. CHOOSE. LIFE!" - Ricci Oprah To anyone reading, I've missed you. If anyone out there is struggling with, well anything, I...
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Goodbye.
“There is a charming quality, is there not,” he said to me, “in this silence; for hearts that are wounded, as mine is , a novelist whom you will read in time to come, claims that there is no remedy but silence and shadow. And see you this, my boy, there comes in all lives a time, towards which…
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Alfonsina Storni - The She-Wolf
"I am like the she-wolf. I travel alone and I laugh at the flock." - Alfonsina Storni "My biggest thrill this week was seeing that basket full of mini chips in the salon window." - Me LINKS: Buy Alfonsina Storni's Selected Poems HERE. Check out Western Exhibitions' Drawing Biennial! Watch F.…
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Episode 379: Mike White - Levi's Letter from Rehab on "Enlightened" + RIP Charles Simic
"We're animals, Amy. And some animals like to party. For me, God is a beer on the beach. Maybe that's fucked up, but at least it's honest." - Levi, Enlightened "Inside my empty bottle I was constructing a lighthouse while all others were making ships." - Charles Simic "Today wasn't anything...
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Episode 378: Eliot Weinberger - An Elemental Thing (The Rhinoceros)
"Modern natural philosophers have found God in the folds of the skin of the rhinoceros." - Voltaire "I found the saltiest, greasiest corn chip at the bottom of this Juanita's bag this morning. It totally blew my mind." - Me LINKS: Buy the book here…
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Episode 377: I'll Be Back!
Checking in after a long illness. Can't wait to start talking with you guys again! LINKS: Send your questions/comments/concerns to: [email protected] My website: www.robynoneil.com Me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/robyn_oneil/?hl=en
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Episode 376: Dire Straits - Money For Nothing
"We got to install microwave ovens, custom kitchen deliveries." - Dire Straits "I love turkey sandwiches." - Me LINKS: Check out the Dire Straits video for "Money For Nothing" HERE! See Damien Jurado's website for tickets to his upcoming 25th anniversary show. My #1 Favorite Damien live video:...
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Episode 375: Anne Carson - The Albertine Workout
"It is always tricky, the question whether to read an author’s work in light of his life or not." -Anne Carson "If you can drink a beer, you can smell patchouli." - Me LINKS: Check out "The Albertine Workout" by Anne Carson HERE and buy it at your nearest independent bookseller. Listen to Anne...
About this show
This is simply me reading stuff. Poems, essays, letters, recipes, and whatever else feels alive in the moment — mixed with my own rambling thoughts, laughter, and honest reflections on life, art, and everything in between.Think of it as having lunch with a good friend: warm, unfiltered, and admittedly a little bit strange. A space where we can escape together with books, encourage each other, and feel a little less alone.Sincerely,Robyn O’Neil
Hosted by
Robyn O'Neil