In which I talk to myself about Caedmon's hymn, Beckett, Barthes, Foucault, Dracula, Corona, poem-twittery as identity politics, and why poetry koans are (maybe?) more important than the poets who wrote them.  “Someone speaks, someone hears: no need to go any further. It is not he, it is not she, it’s I. (Or another, or others – what does it matter?) The case is clear: it is not he, she, they who I know I am (that’s all I know), who I cannot say I am. (I can’t say anything – I’ve tried, I’m trying.) We know nothing, know of nothing: neither what it is to speak, nor what it is to hear.” SAMUEL BECKETT (from The Unnameable) Text version of this episode here: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/ttm-3-the-joys-delights-of-being-nobody-everybody-caedmons-hymn/

In which I talk to myself about Mark Waldron's poem The Warehouse and what it might have to teach us at the moment about dealing with the apocalyptic anxieties of the coronavirus, as well as our more day-to-day worries. Also included: a grounding practice called RAF (Recognise, Allow, Focus) which I find very helpful when anxiety dominates my thought processes. THE WAREHOUSE This is not a false alarm. This is not a drill. This is an emergency. It’s not just about an emergency. It’s not just on the subject of an emergency, it doesn’t merely refer to some emergency that’s taking place elsewhere. Neither is it a metaphor for an emergency, or an exclamation drawing attention to an emergency. It is actually the emergency, and it requires attention. It’s not so much like a fire in a warehouse where paper is stored, ordered by colour and weight and finish and size, ordered by shape and age; it’s more like a fire in a warehouse built for the storage of fire. The fire can make nothing of its heat inside its burning home. -Mark Waldron Text version of this episode here: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/4184-2/

In which I talk to myself about Mary Ruefle’s sadness, social media, our inner interlocutors, and the decision to deliver electric shocks to one's own gonads rather than sit in a room quietly listening to the mind’s chatter. “Gray sadness is the sadness of paper clips and rubber bands, of rain and squirrels and chewing gum, ointments and unguents and movie theaters. Gray sadness is the most common of all sadnesses, it is the sadness of sand in the desert and sand on the beach, the sadness of keys in a pocket, cans on a shelf, hair in a comb, dry-cleaning, and raisins. Gray sadness is beautiful, but not to be confused with the beauty of blue sadness, which is irreplaceable. Sad to say, gray sadness is replaceable, it can be replaced daily, it is the sadness of a melting snowman in a snowstorm.”  (Mary Ruefle, from My Private Property) Text version of this episode here: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/ttm-1-mary-ruefles-sadness/