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.

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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.

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In this week’s episode of “Beyond the Verse,” the official podcast of PoemAnalysis.com and Poetry+, Maiya and Joe dive into Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s haunting masterpiece, ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’.

They begin with Coleridge’s life and the birth of the Romantic movement, situating the poem within its 1798 publication in Lyrical Ballads. The hosts explore Coleridge’s radical youth, his bond with Wordsworth, and the wider cultural context of exploration, superstition, and shifting faith in the late eighteenth century.

The discussion moves through the Mariner’s fateful journey: the killing of the albatross, the curse that follows, and the unsettling mix of Christian and pre-Christian imagery. Maiya and Joe consider how Coleridge plays with ballad form, rhyme, and rhythm, using sing-song quatrains to deliver some of the darkest content in English poetry. They unpack how the albatross becomes one of literature’s most enduring symbols, resonating across writers from Mary Shelley and Charles Baudelaire to Herman Melville, Robert Eggers, and even Taylor Swift.

By the end, the episode weighs whether the Mariner’s tale is really a moral teaching or simply an endless cycle of guilt and retelling, a punishment that reflects both ancient myth and Coleridge’s own troubled mind.

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• ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ PDFs:
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• Samuel Taylo

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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.

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• 'Our Casuarina Tree' PDFs:
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For 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.

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• The cultural and personal significance of ‘Our Casuarina Tree’
• How memory and loss shape Dutt’s poetic vision
• The blending of Indian and European traditions in her writing
• The colonial undertones in the poem’s natural imagery

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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.

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• 'My Last Duchess' PDFs:
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    • Poem Printable with Both Meter and Rhyme Scheme
• Robert Browning PDF Guide

For 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 Duke
• How heroic couplets frame control and authority
• The uneasy relationship between artists and patrons
• The enduring fascination with jealousy, power, and true crime

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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.

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Tune in and Discover:

• What makes haiku more than a 5-7-5 poem
• Why Bashō’s “old pond” is still one of the most famous haiku ever written
• How 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 apart

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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.

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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 format
• Favorite episodes and underappreciated gems from Seasons 1 and 2
• Poets and works that changed Joe and Maiya’s perspectives
• What’s next for “Beyond the Verse” in its second year

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In this episode of Beyond the Verse, the official podcast of PoemAnalysis.com and Poetry+, hosts Maiya and Joe explore 'Small Towns and the River' by Mamang Dai, a deeply resonant poem that blends cosmology, animism, and the intimate experiences of life and death in India’s northeastern hill communities.

Together, they unpack how Dai—drawing on her Adi tribal heritage and deep environmental consciousness—uses the imagery of a flowing river to explore permanence, transience, and the cyclical nature of life and grief. The hosts examine the significance of animistic belief systems, the personification of the natural world, and how rituals provide both protection and continuity for communities facing modern encroachment.

From the evocative opening line—“Small towns always remind me of death”—to the river’s symbolic immortality, Maiya and Joe discuss how Dai crafts a vision of death not as an end, but a transformation woven into ancestral and geographic memory. They also analyze how the poem’s structure mimics the flow of water and how it reflects Dai’s subtle anxieties about cultural erosion in a modernizing world.

Download exclusive PDFs on Small Towns and the River, available to Poetry+ members:

• Full PDF Guide
• Poetry Snapshot PDF

Tune in and discover:

• How Dai’s Adi heritage and environmentalism shape the poem’s core message.
• Why the river becomes a metaphor for both grief and ancestral continuity
• How oral tradition and mythology intersect with poetic form.
• What the poem reveals about the tension between rural identity and urban expansion.
• How Dai uses timeless natural symbols to explore mortality, memory, and renewal.

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