The Poetry Fix

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.