Best Baudelaire Podcasts (2024)

1
Mary Oliver on stewardship of the planet 37:17

8d ago37:17

37:17

Poet of the ordinary, the common, the very drab, Mary Oliver was willing to listen, to hear. From that willingness emerges a body of work that is as humble as it is wise. She sang with open throat the prayers of the grass, the waggle of honey bees, the flowing river, the waiting sun, and asked on behalf of the earth crumbling under our carbon footp…

1
Pablo Neruda on living with passion 40:48

10M ago40:48

40:48

“Neruda’s poetry touches the depth of things. One feels its interdimensional layers in the way fragrance or taste can harbor time. But with him, it seems to go further than that; down, down, and into the fabric of what is being played out in the landscape of the lived moment. Neruda’s song marvels at appearance, investigates texture, inhabits cells…

1
Matsuo Basho on cultivating focus and humility 30:49

1+ y ago30:49

30:49

Basho’s poetry delves into the present moment and leaves us with flashes, echoes of ordinary things made extraordinary because he took the time to look at them. Short and seemingly simple, it is the very spaciousness of the Haiku that allows him to open the doors of contemplation for us -- and that is what he does, when we let him. Hosted by Ausha.…

1
Stendhal’s Red and Black (Le Rouge et le Noir) - Phi Fic Ep. 46 1:29:08

1+ y ago1:29:08

1:29:08

One of Nietzsche’s favorite novels, Le Rouge et le Noir contains some of the most profound psychological analysis in all of fiction. The novel tells the story about a young man from a modest background who seeks a glorious career, but ends up in enormous trouble as a result of his love affairs. The novel is divided into halves, with the first half …

1
Walt Whitman on love of self and country 38:52

2y ago38:52

38:52

Whitman's song catalogs a profound empathy for the other, whom he in many ways identified as himself. That sense of oneness pervades his poetry, and in my mind stands as his most important message--that we are one and must therefore include the other. These ideas are conveyed with forward intimacy, a closeness that engages and reflects with you, a …

1
The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton 1:15:00

2y ago1:15:00

1:15:00

Join Nina, Daniel, Fabrice, and Rob us as we discuss Edith Wharton's 1913 satire of American ambition, The Custom of the Country.

1
The Poetry Episode (Dickinson, Baudelaire, Bishop, Byron) 56:33

2y ago56:33

56:33

Each of the four contributors picked a different poem to read and discuss for this episode. The poems we picked are listed below. Also below are links to the poems and the starting point for each segment. Emily Dickinson, "The Brain is Wider Than the Sky" - 2:35 https://drupal.yalebooks.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/TOC/edelman_wider.pdf Charl…

1
Rumi on wisdom: knowledge seasoned by love 29:46

2+ y ago29:46

29:46

Rumi's poetry speaks to us from a state of deep inspiration. The luminescence of his verse carries hope, delivers method and the emotional depth needed to find our way to the knowledge seasoned by love—wisdom. From reading Rumi, one learns that there is a rigor to love. That it reaches beyond attachment to something closer to what we do. “Let the b…

1
PHI FIC #43 Bleak House by Charles Dickens 1:37:37

2+ y ago1:37:37

1:37:37

1
Toni Morrison on the pursuit of goodness 35:16

2+ y ago35:16

35:16

“Out of the gospel of the middle passage, the blues of slavery, the jazz of big city ghetto nights,” the Nobel Prize winning Toni Morrison whose generative depth and sounding of interiority produces a lyricism that is radiant in its generosity and in my mind can only be described as song. Morrisson rivets because she has an ear tuned to the complex…

1
An unwritten novel by Virginia Woolf 44:07

3y ago44:07

44:07

1
Phi Fic #41 Paradise Lost by John Milton 1:17:48

3y ago1:17:48

1:17:48

1
Phi Fic #40 The Old Man and the Sea by Earnest Hemingway 1:17:26

3+ y ago1:17:26

1:17:26

1
Charles Baudelaire on suffering in the first world 38:15

3+ y ago38:15

38:15

“Baudelaire’s life ended in 1861 in syphilitic delirium in a hotel room in Brussels. With him died the caustic dandy: the son of an art critique, the translator who brought Edgar Allan Poe to the French public, the stepson of general Jacques Aupick, the aesthete of impeccable style whose trenchant remarks often made him cruel, who flaunted his Hait…

1
Paul Laurence Dunbar on accepting the truth about who we are 30:14

3+ y ago30:14

30:14

“Paul Laurence Dunbar was the first to take a bird’s-eye view of black identity in America. The first to look at his people objectively and catalog their humor, their pain, their strength, their shortcomings. In short, he offers one of the first literary portraits of Black America. He introduces an African-American character to our literary landsca…

1
Rainer Maria Rilke 's invitation to contemplative insight 41:01

3+ y ago41:01

41:01

“With Rilke there is always this sense that the universe was not made for us; rather we are a part of it and subject to greater hierarchies–that celestial realm that he felt we could access by leaning into our pain. Beauty is both turmoil and peace, alluring and alarming–a pregnant emptiness. Creativity. This understanding and continuity is what Ri…

1
Phi fin #39 Point Omega by Don DeLillo 1:22:54

3+ y ago1:22:54

1:22:54

1
Anna Akhmatova on the human cost of populism 31:23

3+ y ago31:23

31:23

“Akhmatova’s song is capable of articulating love with exactitude and an emotional precision that cuts to the core of you. What makes her so powerful a voice is the emotional history she carries. It’s that feeling documented about what tyrannous institutions do to the human soul; what happens to us when that compassionate part of ourselves is in re…

1
Derek Walcott on loving the Caribbean into history 32:48

3+ y ago32:48

32:48

“Walcott is in my mind — without a doubt –the great poet of the late 20th century. His is a mellifluous song; a voice of such breadth and longing…perhaps a longing to right old wrongs. In any case, he enshrines an entire people in truth beyond all confabulations so that we may come to know how they came to be who they are now. In, Omeros, Walcott’s…

1
Phi Fic #38 Howard's End by EM Forster 1:14:44

3+ y ago1:14:44

1:14:44

1
William Carlos Williams on showcasing the American temperament 27:17

4y ago27:17

27:17

“My tribute to the doctor, novelist, playwright, imagist and poet William Carlos Williams whose rigorous notes strike close to the core of the American ethos because they are scrupulously just. He has two fingers on the American pulse: its beauty, its devastation, its solitude, its reveries, its ignorance…yes. Creative imaginings whose excacting st…