Folie a Deux: Laura Riding and Robert Graves

Soundtrack to today's episode

Topics discussed in this episode include:

-"On Portents" by Robert Graves

-"The White Goddess" by Robert Graves

-"Life With The Real White Goddess" by Louis Simpson

-Poetry Messiah Witch Cult

-The Fugitives

-Misadventures in polyamory

-"A Survey of Modernist Poetry" by Riding & Graves

-"The Cool Web" by Robert Graves

-The squishiness of children

-The double-edged sword of language

-"Rational Meaning: A New Foundation for the Definition of Words" by Laura Riding

-"Death As Death" by Laura Riding:

To conceive death as death

is difficulty come by easily,

a blankness fallen among

images of understanding,

death like a quick cold hand

on the hot slow head of suicide.

So is it come by easily

for one instant. Then again furnaces

roar in the ears, then again hell revolves,

and the elastic eye holds paradise

at visible length from blindness,

and dazedly the body echoes

‘like this, like this, like nothing else.’

Like nothing—a similarity

without resemblance. The prophetic eye,

closing upon difficulty,

opens upon comparison,

halving the actuality

as a gift too plain, for which

gratitude has no language,

foresight no vision.

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My favorite poetry podcasts for: Sharp thoughts and cutting truths (Matthew): Sleerickets Lovely introspection and sensitive reflection (Alice): Poetry Says The landscape of Ohioan poetry (Jeremy): Poetry Spotlight

Supported in part by The Ohio Poetry Association Art by David Anthony Klug

List of the most common metrical feet: Iamb: weak-STRONG (u /) Trochee: STRONG-weak (/ u) Anapest: weak-weak-STRONG (u u /) Amphibrach: weak-STRONG-weak (u / u) Dactyl: STRONG-weak-weak (/ u u) Cretic: STRONG-weak-STRONG (/ u /) Pyrrhic: weak-weak (u u) Spondee: STRONG-STRONG (/ /)