The Poetry Fix

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.