Xybornaut Multimedia Podcast

The Hollow Men
by TS Eliot

This stark poem takes place in a twilight realm of disembodied men and forces. Eliot ties the Hollow Men to Conrad‘s “Heart of Darkness” through an explicit reference in the prolog - “Mistah Kurtz - He Dead”. The hollow men are walking corpses and their emptiness is the vacuity of mind detached from any reality. Their voices are whispers. They are detached from nature, and live in a place which is devoid of any spiritual presence. The empty men are bereft of God. The Poem is ultimately an analysis of the vacuity of subjective idealism.

Snake
by D.H. Lawrence

Snake details a few moments when Lawrence is confronted by a snake at his water trough in Sicily. While his inner voice tells him to kill the snake, he admires it for its beauty and regalness. When the snake turns to leave, Lawrence throws a stick at it, but is overcome by his sense of pettiness for doing so.

The Yachts
by William Carlos Williams

In The Yachts, Williams reminisces on the America’s Cup yacht races he had seen off Newport, Rhode island, and the ambivalence he had felt watching all that aristocratic skill while knowing that it was a nation of poor people who in reality supported this small privileged class.

Jabberwocky
by Lewis Carroll

A fanciful poem from Carroll#8216;s “Through the Looking Glass”, full of made-up words about a great (and doomed) phantasmagorical beast.

Howl
by Allan Ginsberg

Ginsberg once called Howl “an emotional time bomb that would continue exploding in U.S. consciousness in case our military-industrial-nationalist complex solidified.” Ginsberg#8216;s monumental poem was first heard in a series of famous readings that signaled the arrival of the Beat Generation of writers. The first of these readings took place in October 1955, at the Six Gallery in San Francisco. It was Allen Ginsberg#8216;s first public performance, and it made him instantly famous at the age of twenty-nine.

Sir Gawain and the Green Night
by Ivor Winters

Poetry critic Ivor Winters#8216; take on the epic story of Sir Gawain#8216;s beheading of the Green Knight.

A Certain Slant of Light
by Emily Dickinson

The overwhelming feeling you get in reading “A Certain Slant of Light” is a painful oppressiveness, and possibly death. The season is winter, when the year is approaching its end. The time is late afternoon, when the day is ending and the light slants. The suggestion of death is implied by cathedral tunes (funeral music?), by “the distance on the look of death,” and by the stillness of the hour.

The Lovesong of J Alfred Prufrock
by TS Eliot

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is the 1917 poem that marked the start of TS Eliot#8216;s career as one of the twentieth century#8216;s most influential poets. The poem is one of the most anthologized 20th century poems in the English language. The poem tells the inner feelings of a man in love who realises that his aspirations and his outlook on life are much deeper than those of the rest of the people. He feels the need to stir those around him, to make them conscious of the seriousness of life and of their frivolity, but at the same time he fears being rejected and mocked.

The Man Who Dreamed of Faeryland
by William Butler Yeats

In The Man who Dreamed of Faeryland, a man dies only to be reborn in the realm of the faery. The implication is that all men, after death may hear the song of the faery race.

A Day At Summer#8216;s Full
by Emily Dickinson

A poem that contemplates love, marriage, devotion and death. Dickinson can be impenetrable, but sounds profound. This is one of those poems.

Adam#8216;s Curse
by William Butler Yeats

Adam#8216;s Curse is a recollection of an evening spent amongst Yeats, his lover and her friend. The title suggests a loss of innocence and idyllic happiness. The poem frames the philosophical argument, that because of the curse of labor that God placed upon Adam when Adam was expelled from the Garden of Eden, every worthwhile human achievement -- particularly those aimed at achieving beauty, whether in poetry, physical appearance, or love -- requires hard work.

The Walrus and the Carpenter
by Lewis Carroll

A poem from Carroll#8216;s “Through the Looking Glass” which depicts the fate of some gullable oysters at the hands of a hungry walrus and a carpenter.

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