Beyond the Verse

In this week’s episode of Beyond the Verse, the official podcast of PoemAnalysis.com and Poetry+, Maiya and Joe close Season Three with a special Q&A from their listeners.After nearly forty episodes, they pause to look back on their journey, answer community questions, and talk about what’s next for the show. The first question comes from Chandra, asking if a fourth season is coming and whether they’ll take on an epic like the ‘Ramayana’. Joe and Maiya share their excitement about exploring epics and how such poems might need a multi-episode format, similar to their World War I series.They also reflect on favorite moments from the season. Joe mentions the ode episode and their discussion of Langston Hughes, while Maiya recalls how ‘Our Casuarina Tree’ by Toru Dutt and ‘The Man with the Saxophone’ by Ai expanded her research and deepened her love for discovering new poets.A question from the community sparks a thoughtful discussion on modern poetry. Joe talks about diversity, access, and the dominance of free verse, while Maiya considers how social media has both opened and complicated poetry’s world. They agree that poetry remains powerful because it connects people, comforts them, and helps them understand life’s most complex moments.Things take a playful turn with a quick-fire poet quiz. From Shakespeare to Heaney, Joe is forced to make impossible choices, ending with Seamus Heaney as his final pick.As they wrap up the season, the hosts thank listeners from more than 195 countries and invite everyone to keep sharing ideas on the PoemAnalysis.com community. With Season Four already in the works, they promise more poems, more voices, and the same thoughtful conversation that’s made the show a global favorite.Featured Mentions (PDF Guides for each):Toru DuttAi Langston HughesSeamus HeaneyPatrick KavanaghOcean VuongLouise GlückSend us a textSupport the showAs always, for the ultimate poetry experience, join Poetry+ and explore all things poetry at PoemAnalysis.com.

In this week’s episode of Beyond the Verse, the official podcast of PoemAnalysis.com and Poetry+, Maiya and Joe discuss Ai’s ‘The Man with the Saxophone’, a city poem that captures connection in the quiet streets of New York before sunrise.After Maiya’s reading, they talk about Ai’s background and her remarkable voice as a poet. Born Florence Anthony in 1947 in Texas, she later chose the name Ai, meaning “love” in Japanese. With ancestry that included Japanese, Native American, Black, and Irish roots, she wrote with honesty about identity and humanity. Her major works include Cruelty, Sin, and Vice, which won the National Book Award in 1999.Joe and Maiya describe how the poem begins at 5 in the morning. The city is silent, the sidewalks empty, and the speaker walks down Fifth Avenue until meeting a homeless saxophonist. This brief encounter becomes a moment of shared stillness and warmth in a cold and lonely setting. Through music, two people who might never meet again find a kind of wordless understanding.They also reflect on Ai’s portrayal of New York as fragile and human rather than grand or glamorous. Snow is described as brittle, the city compared to an old man with a white beard, and the towering Empire State Building becomes a quiet backdrop instead of a symbol of power. The hosts consider how Ai turns the city into a space of reflection, where loneliness and beauty coexist.The saxophone itself becomes a powerful image. It represents art, memory, and survival. The man plays not for money but because the music itself gives life meaning. Jazz, deeply tied to African American history, becomes a language of resilience. For the speaker, listening to that sound brings freedom and breath, a way to feel alive again.Maiya and Joe look closely at the closing image: “each note, a black flower opening into the unforgiving new day.” The flower becomes a sign of hope pushing through the cold, a moment of grace that refuses despair. When the speaker imagines rising like a bird and then falling back to the ground, Ai shows the balance between freedom and reality, dream and endurance.The episode ends with reflection on how Ai reclaims the city as belonging to those often unseen. Her poem listens to what happens in the quiet, reminding us that art can give voice to those who seem forgotten.Get exclusive PDFs on Ai and her poetry, available to Poetry+ users:‘The Man with the Saxophone’ PDFs: Full PDF Guides Poetry Snapshot PDFs Ai PDF GuideSend us a textSupport the showAs always, for the ultimate poetry experience, join Poetry+ and explore all things poetry at PoemAnalysis.com.

Explore the fascinating evolution of the ode, starting from ancient Greece with Pindar and Sappho. Delve into Keats’s haunting reflections on beauty and mortality in his ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn,’ and witness Brontë’s intimate emotions in ‘The Lady to Her Guitar.’ Discover Neruda’s playful celebration of everyday objects in his odes, and how poets like Tim Turnbull and Eavan Boland reinvigorate the form by focusing on specific and local experiences. The ode proves to be a timeless vessel for both grand and personal themes.

In this week’s episode of Beyond the Verse, the official podcast of PoemAnalysis.com and Poetry+, Maiya and Joe focus on Christina Rossetti’s ‘Remember,’ one of the most enduring sonnets of the Victorian period.After Maiya’s reading, they look at Rossetti’s background: her Italian literary family, her early breakdown at fourteen, her deep commitment to Anglo-Catholic faith, and her choice to remain unmarried despite several proposals. These details help frame the intensity and restraint within her poetry.The hosts examine the poem’s Petrarchan sonnet form, with its octave demanding remembrance and its sestet softening into acceptance. They discuss how the volta shifts the tone from insistence to selflessness, where the speaker prioritizes her loved one’s peace over her own memory.Rossetti’s use of euphemistic language for death—“the silent land,” “gone away”—is considered in relation to Victorian ideals, religious imagery, and comparisons with other poets such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Dylan Thomas. They also consider whether the addressee might be her former fiancé, a family member, or a more universal figure, and how the act of remembrance can be both intimate and impersonal.The episode closes by reflecting on how ‘Remember’ balances personal grief with broader cultural expectations of Victorian womanhood, showing both conformity and quiet resistance. Rossetti’s restraint becomes a kind of power, allowing her to leave a lasting legacy through poetry.Get exclusive PDFs on Christina Rossetti and her poetry, available to Poetry+ users:‘Remember’ PDFs:Full PDF GuidesPoetry Snapshot PDFsPoem Printable PDFsWith Meter & SyllablesWith Rhyme SchemeWith Both Meter and RhymeChristina Rossetti PDF GuideSend us a textSupport the showAs always, for the ultimate poetry experience, join Poetry+ and explore all things poetry at PoemAnalysis.com.

In this week’s episode of “Beyond the Verse,” the official podcast of PoemAnalysis.com and Poetry+, Maiya and Joe turn their attention to Langston Hughes, one of the most influential voices of the Harlem Renaissance.They begin with Hughes’s life, from his birth in Missouri in 1901 to his travels across Africa and Europe, his brief stay in Paris, and the release of his groundbreaking collection The Weary Blues in 1926. Along the way, they place him in the wider context of the Harlem Renaissance, the Great Migration, and America’s racial and cultural shifts across the twentieth century.The discussion moves through some of Hughes’s most powerful works, beginning with 'The Negro Speaks of Rivers,' where Hughes connects African American identity to ancient rivers and collective history. Maiya and Joe consider how Hughes reclaims narrative authority, blending personal and communal voices with timeless imagery. They also explore 'Mother to Son' and its extended metaphor of climbing broken stairs, showing resilience in the face of hardship. From there, they turn to 'I, Too' as a direct response to Walt Whitman, a bold claim of belonging in America, and finally 'Harlem (A Dream Deferred),' a sharp meditation on frustration, deferred hope, and the elusive promise of the American Dream.By the end, the episode shows how Hughes’s poetry continues to resonate, influencing writers, musicians, and movements from Baldwin and Hansberry to Kendrick Lamar. His work stands as both a product of its time and a voice that continues to shape how America understands itself.Get exclusive Poetry PDFs on Langston Hughes and his poetry, available to Poetry+ users.Send us a textSupport the showAs always, for the ultimate poetry experience, join Poetry+ and explore all things poetry at PoemAnalysis.com.

Explore the haunting world of Coleridge's ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’! Delve into the poet's radical youth and his bond with Wordsworth, while unraveling the fate of the Mariner and the symbolic weight of the albatross. Hear about the interplay of form and dark themes, and discover how Christian and pre-Christian imagery intertwine throughout. The discussion goes deep into moral ambiguity and echoes from classical literature. Finally, ponder whether the Mariner’s tale imparts a clear moral or simply an endless cycle of guilt.

In this week’s episode of “Beyond the Verse,” the official podcast of PoemAnalysis.com and Poetry+, Maiya and Joe turn their attention to Toru Dutt’s ‘Our Casuarina Tree’, a landmark poem in Indian English literature.Beginning with Maiya’s reading, they reflect on Dutt’s short but remarkable life, her education in Cambridge, and her ability to bridge Indian and European literary traditions. The hosts discuss how the tree serves as both a personal and cultural symbol, tied to memory, family, and identity, while also carrying undertones of colonial tension.They look closely at the poem’s opening images of the python and creeper, considering how constriction and scars might echo both personal loss and broader historical struggles. The discussion also focuses on liminal spaces in the poem—between India and Europe, life and death, memory and the present—and how Dutt’s blending of English Romantic influences with Indian natural and cultural motifs creates something deeply original.Finally, Joe and Maiya explore the technical structure of the poem, noting its enclosed rhyme scheme and iambic pentameter, and how these formal choices reinforce themes of entrapment, release, and continuity. They close with a reflection on Dutt’s legacy, her reworking of Wordsworth’s ‘Yew Trees’, and how ‘Our Casuarina Tree’ transforms a symbol of fear into one of memory, comfort, and resilience.Get exclusive PDFs on Toru Dutt and her poetry, available to Poetry+ users:'Our Casuarina Tree' PDFs:Full PDF GuidesPoetry Snapshot PDFsPoem Printable PDFsWith Meter SyllablesWith Rhyme SchemeWith Both Meter and RhymeToru Dutt PDF GuideFor more insights into Toru Dutt, visit PoemAnalysis.com, where you can explore a wide range of analyzed poems, with thousands of PDFs, study tools, and more.Tune in and Discover:The cultural and personal significance of ‘Our Casuarina Tree’How memory and loss shape Dutt’s poetic visionThe blending of Indian and European traditions in her writingThe colonial undertones in the poem’s natural imagerySend us a textSupport the showAs always, for the ultimate poetry experience, join Poetry+ and explore all things poetry at PoemAnalysis.com.

In this week’s episode of “Beyond the Verse,” the official podcast of PoemAnalysis.com and Poetry+, Maiya and Joe turn their attention to Robert Browning’s chilling dramatic monologue, ‘My Last Duchess’.Beginning with Browning’s life and context, they trace how the poem emerged from Victorian England while also drawing on real historical figures such as Alfonso II, Duke of Ferrara. The hosts unpack how Browning builds a psychological portrait of the Duke, weaving themes of control, jealousy, and social power into the tightly structured heroic couplets.The discussion focuses on the Duke’s disturbing monologue, where subtle hints and chilling admissions suggest he may have orchestrated his wife’s death. Maiya and Joe consider the way Browning layers different kinds of power—the Duke’s social status, the Duchess’s quiet influence, and the lasting authority of the artist whose painting preserves her smile. They also explore how Browning uses art itself as a commentary on truth, perception, and legacy, comparing the Duke’s blindness to the insight offered by painting, sculpture, and poetry.By the end, the episode situates ‘My Last Duchess’ within both its Renaissance inspiration and its modern resonances, linking Browning’s psychological study to today’s cultural fascination with true crime and the blurred line between public image and private reality.Get exclusive Poetry PDFs on Robert Browning and his poetry, available to Poetry+ users:'My Last Duchess' PDFs:PDF GuidePoetry SnapshotPoem PrintablePoem Printable with MeterPoem Printable with Rhyme SchemePoem Printable with Both Meter and Rhyme SchemeRobert Browning PDF GuideFor more insights into Robert Browning, visit PoemAnalysis.com, where you can explore a wide range of analyzed poems, with thousands of PDFs, study tools, and more.Tune in and Discover:The chilling psychology of Browning’s DukeHow heroic couplets frame control and authorityThe uneasy relationship between artists and patronsThe enduring fascination with jealousy, power, and true crimeSend us a textSupport the showAs always, for the ultimate poetry experience, join Poetry+ and explore all things poetry at PoemAnalysis.com.

In this week’s episode of “Beyond the Verse,” the official podcast of PoemAnalysis.com and Poetry+, Joe and Maiya kick off Season 3 with a special deep dive into Japanese poetry and the idea of national literature.They trace the roots of Japanese verse from the ancient Man’yōshū to the masters of haiku—Bashō, Buson, and Issa. Along the way, they unpack how haiku developed from collaborative forms like renga, how it captures fleeting moments, and why it continues to speak across time. From frogs and still ponds to moon moths and melting snow, this episode explores how much can be said in just three lines.Get access to exclusive haiku resources and our in-depth Haiku Course with a Poetry+ membership.Tune in and Discover:What makes haiku more than a 5-7-5 poemWhy Bashō’s “old pond” is still one of the most famous haiku ever writtenHow Buson brings a painter’s eye to his verse in “moon moth” and “blown from the west”The tender, funny, and deeply human voice in Issa’s “the snow is melting”What shapes a national literature—and how Japan’s poetic tradition stands apartSend us a textSupport the showAs always, for the ultimate poetry experience, join Poetry+ and explore all things poetry at PoemAnalysis.com.

In this week’s episode of “Beyond the Verse,” the official podcast of PoemAnalysis.com and Poetry+, Joe and Maiya celebrate the show’s one-year anniversary, reflecting on the journey so far, the lessons learned, and the evolving style of their in-depth poetry discussions.They share listener questions, revealing their proudest moments, favorite episodes, and the poets who have surprised them most over the past twelve months. From early highlights like Danez Smith’s episode to thematic deep dives on Yeats’ The Second Coming and intimate encounters with Mamang Dai’s Small Towns and the River, Joe and Maiya explore how the podcast has reshaped their own reading habits and appreciation for poetry.Get exclusive Poetry PDFs from the episodes mentioned, available to Poetry+ users.Plus, hear about Season 3’s exciting plans — from Langston Hughes’ 'Mother to Son' and Browning’s 'My Last Duchess' to an opening episode on Japanese poetry and national identity.Tune in and Discover:How the podcast evolved into a conversational, collaborative formatFavorite episodes and underappreciated gems from Seasons 1 and 2Poets and works that changed Joe and Maiya’s perspectivesWhat’s next for “Beyond the Verse” in its second yearSend us a textSupport the showAs always, for the ultimate poetry experience, join Poetry+ and explore all things poetry at PoemAnalysis.com.