You Could Make This Beautiful: Peter Sagal & Stephanie Burt

In this second episode of You Could Make This Beautiful, hosts Maggie Smith and Faith Salie talk to Peter Sagal, host of the NPR news quiz show Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! about a prophetic reading at his first wedding, the poem that has haunted him throughout his life, and about the poetry he's found in the kindness and grace of his children.

They also hear from poet and Harvard professor Stephanie Burt about how she found her way to poetry by way of science fiction, and how she's used the work of Taylor Swift to introduce her students to poets of centuries past like Alexander Pope.

Show Notes (in chronological order):

Maggie Smith on Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! • Cartoonist Tom Tomorrow • " Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven • " by W. B. Yeats

• " Ithaka • " by C. P. Cavafy

• " The Illusion • " by Tony Kushner

• " Most Like an Arch This Marriage • " by John Ciardi

• Adrienne Rich's poems are " like dreams • " quote

• Poet William Corbett • " The Postmoderns: The New American Poetry Revised • " by Donald M. Allen

• " The Crystal Lithium • " by James Schuyler

• " The Elephant Man • " on Broadway

• " Les Liaisons Dangereuses • " with Alan Rickman

• " Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches • " by Tony Kushner

• " Arcadia • " by Tom Stoppard

• " The Collar • " by George Herbert

• " Poetry's Cross-dressing Kingmaker • ," The New York Times

• " Advice from the Lights • " by Stephanie Burt, featuring "My 1979"

• Star Trek's " Is There in Truth No Beauty? • "

• " We, in Some Strange Power's Employ, Move on a Rigorous Line • " by Samuel R. Delany

• " Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot • " by Alexander Pope

• " Look What You Made Me Do • " by Taylor Swift

• " Tim McGraw • " by Taylor Swift

• " The Nancy Mace • " by Stephanie Burt

• " Taylor's Version: The Poetic and Musical Genius of Taylor Swift • " by Stephanie Burt

Poetry Prescriptions Maggie's prescription: "Go to the Limits of Your Longing" from Rainer Maria Rilke's "Book of Hours"

Faith's prescription: "Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver

If you want a hand-picked, heart-plucked "poetry prescription" to help you with something you're going through, send a brief voice memo to PoetryPrescriptions@gmail.com.

All three episodes of You Could Make This Beautiful are out now and can be heard HERE. This show is an experiment, so if you love what you've heard and want more episodes, let us know! Leave us a glowing review in your podcast app, share the series with friends, and write to us: PoetryPrescriptions@gmail.com.