Bad News. But Not Very Bad News. Depending on How You Look at It.
Featuring a bonus episode, an update on schedules, and a new book of awesome poetry
Hello, Dear Close Readers:
Alas, alas, alas. I have bad news. Disappointing news. Grim news. The saddest sort of news. With a heavy heart, I must inform you that we have had some scheduling issues the last week or so and thus we are behind on releasing the first episode on The Rector of Justin. Insert the saddest emoji you can find. Also, that one where the face is making the gritted teeth emoji as if to say, “sorry, I know it’s not the best situation but don’t be too mad.” Everyone’s schedules are massively full right now and so we’re adjusting slightly for this ten-day period. However, I promise we will back very soon. We champing at the bit to get started.
But in lieu of that first episode, and by way of apology, I posted a bonus episode: the episode that Tim, and Heidi, and I did for our Patreon subscribers a few months back about Hemingway’s “A Clean Well-light Place.” It’s one of my favorite episodes we’ve ever done. So maybe that will tide you over for a while. Check for it wherever you get the podcast.
So this means that you should just plan to bump everything back a week as far as The Rector of Justin goes. Again, I apologize and promise that we will be back soon!
(And the episode of The Play’s the Thing on The Tempest will be up SOON).
While I have you I wanted to let you know about a book that comes today that I love. Really love. I’m not being paid to talk about it, and we’re not being sponsored by the publisher. I don’t even have an affiliate link set up. It’s Maurice Manning’s Railsplitter, which is a book of poems that is told from the perspective of Abraham Lincoln after he’s been assassinated. He’s looking back at his life—from his childhood, and through his Presidency—and he’s contemplating the ramifications of his choices, and the things that he lived through. I’m not normally a fan of concept albums, so to speak, but this book is so imaginative and endearing and thoughtful that I feel the need to champion it. If even half of the listeners of this podcast buy the book it will go a long way. Books of poetry are often hard to sell, but books this good deserve to get purchased. I say we harness the power of The Close Reads Community and help out a poet who deserves it.
You might know that I interviewed Manning for FORMA and also the FORMA podcast, and if you need any convincing those two conversations should help. In the magazine interview, we discussed poetry more generally, and in the podcast, we chatted about this new book at length.
Here is some video we took of Manning reading poems from the book when we went to visit him at his Kentucky farm.
Today’s episode of The Daily Poem also features Manning reading one of his favorite poems, “Boy Wandering in Simms Valley” by Robert Penn Warren. I think you’ll like it.
And Manning’s publisher even put together a playlist on Spotify that includes the music that inspired the book and let me tell you it’s great.
Anyway, you should buy this book. And if you do, go ahead and snap a picture of yourself with the book and post it online and let us all see it because you’re going to be in for some fun and we all need to see those smiles.
Here is the Amazon link and here is the publisher’s link.
That’s all for now. Talk soon.
Happy Reading,
—David