Dead Poets Society

Breaking Form: a Poetry and Culture Podcast

The queens discuss some unusual, at times outlandish (or downright made-up), and unfortunate ends some poets have met.

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Buy our books:
Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.
Read more about Charlotte Brontë (including some of her poems) here.
Brad Gooch's biography of Keith Haring is called Radiant: The Life and Line of Keith Haring, and like Diane Seuss's book Modern Poetry, is releasing on March 5, 2024.
Here's a cartoon rendition of the totally made-up story of Aeschylus's death.
Francis Bacon died after contracting a chill, which he developed after stuffing a chicken full of snow. Read some of his--Bacon's, not the chicken's--poems here.
Read some Oscar Wilde poems here.
To read more about Christopher Marlowe and also some of his poems, click here.
Here's an entertaining and educational video about Dante Alighieri.
Watch a (kinda long but totally worth it, girl) documentary about Zelda Fitzgerald (60 min). Also, read Aria Aber's poem "Zelda Fitzgerald" here.
You can read some of Rupert Brooke's best poems here.
Read more about Frank O'Hara's tragic death on Fire Island here.
As outlined in the medical journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, Keats, who was often in poor health, was regularly in contact with one of the deadliest diseases of his day: tuberculosis. Keats cared for his infected brother, Tom, before contracting the disease, then known as consumption, himself. As his illness took hold, Keats relocated to Italy in the hope that the climate would have a positive effect on his ailments. He was buried in Rome, where his gravestone describes him as "one whose name was writ in water." Read more here.
Here's a great 10-minute talk on Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Watch Suzanne Somers's Thighmaster commercial here.