Your Hostess, Genevieve Manion, shares hauntingly beautiful poetry from the Victorian era's most beloved authors to enchant your heart, calm your nerves, or scare you right to sleep. All 13 episodes available exclusively on Patreon. Go to Patreon to find out more. (https://www.patreon.com/cw/MyVictorianNightmare/membership)
Genevieve explores identity, love, loss, memory, eroticism, guilt, beauty, and damnation through poems by Emily Dickinson, Violet Fane, Algernon Charles Swinburne, and Edward Lear.
16 Jun 2025
Ep. 12 - Here and in Hell
Genevieve explores themes of death, sorrow, and solace in 19th-century poetry, analyzing works by James Clarence Mangan, Edgar Allan Poe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Hardy, and Luisa May Alcott.
9 Jun 2025
Ep. 11 - When Dead Hearts Deemed Him Dead
Genevieve explores themes of liberation, intrusive ghosts, and inner peace through the lens of classic dark poetry, revealing the power of choosing joy over despair.
2 Jun 2025
Ep. 10 - For All His Children Suffer Here
Genevieve explores mental anguish, fragile hopes, and spiritual insight through mourning, confinement, and reverence for the departed.
26 May 2025
Ep. 9 - Much of Madness & More of Sin
Host Genevieve explores themes of madness, sin, and mortality through the analysis of poems by Edgar Allan Poe, William Blake, and Christina Rossetti, revealing poetry's capacity for solace.
19 May 2025
Ep. 8 - A Demon in My View
In this episode, Genevieve reads "Dirge in Woods" by George Meredith, “My True Love Hath My Heart And I Have His,'” by Mary Elizabeth Colleridge, "A Forsaken Garden" by Algernon Charlse Swinburn, "Ye Flags of Piccadilly," by Arthur Huge Clough, "Alone," by Edgar Allan Poe, "A Dream," by Mathilde Blind and "Life," by Charlotte Brontë.
12 May 2025
Ep. 7 - In What Furnace Was Thy Brain
This episode includes "The Tyger" by William Blake, "The Old Arm Chair" by Eliza Cook, “Because I could not stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson, "The Laboratory" by Robert Browning, "The Harlot's House" by Oscar Wilde, and "The Siren" by Violet Fane.
10 Feb 2025
Ep. 6 - When I Am Dead, My Dearest
On today's episode, we’re celebrating Valentines Day with some darkly romantic pieces written by some of the most darkly romantic poets of the Victorian Era. We’ll have melancholic poems about undying love, themes of acceptance, the transience of life, and the inevitability of death, vampiric abandon, ghostly love stories, painful memories and times of roses.
"Annabel Lee" by Edgar Allan Poe, "When I Am Dead, My Dearest" by Christina Rossetti, "The Vampire" by Rudyard Kipling, "A Ballad: The Lake of the Dismal Swamp" by Thomas Moore, "Remembrance" by Emily Brontë, "The Phantom-Wooer" by Thomas Lovell Beddoes, and "Time of Roses" by Thomas Hood
3 Feb 2025
Ep. 5 - Rattle His Bones Over the Stones
In this episode, Genevieve shares themes of memory and grief, ivy growing over graves, death as a great equalizer between the rich and poor, dark philosophy, a tragic snowstorm, and a superstitious ghost.
“The Ivy Green” by Charles Dickens, “The Shadow on the Stone” by Thomas Hardy, “The Pauper's Drive” by Thomas Noel, "The Garden of Proserpine" by Algernon Charles Swinburne, "Lucy Gray" by William Wordsworth, and "The Superstitious Ghost" by Arthur Guiterman.
27 Jan 2025
Ep. 4 - A Pale, Pale Corpse She Floated By
In this episode, Genevieve will share melancholic themes of darkness and desolation, a dream within a dream, spiritual death, contrasts between former grandeur and ultimate decay, and the cost of perusing forbidden desires.
"Sibilla's Dirge" by Thomas Lovell Beddoes, "A Dream Within a Dream" by Edgar Allan Poe, "Dead Before Death" by Christina Rossetti, "The Death of Napoleon" by Isaac McClellan, and "The Lady of Shalott" by Alfred Lord Tennyson.
20 Jan 2025
Ep. 3 - Watch For Me by Moonlight
In this episode, Geneveive will share the dangerous allure of fairies, a sailor's harrowing journey, a transition from splendor to ruin and a tragic, moonlit love story.
“The Fairies” by William Allingham, “The Haunted Palace” by Edgar Allan Poe, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and “The Highway Man” by Alfred Noyes.
13 Jan 2025
Ep. 2 - The Icy Silence of the Tomb
Genevieve reads haunting poems from Christina Georgina Rossetti, Robert Ervin Howard, Wilfred Owen, Thomas Hardy, John Keats, and Mary Elizabeth Coleridge, uncovering the darkness within the human experience.
5 Jan 2025
Ep. 1 - Her Noble Bones
Poet and critic, Andrew Dickson (Professor of English at the University of Aberdeen) and poet, Mark Waldron, explore the dark and eerie world of 19th-century poetry, uncovering the beauty in its haunting and often disturbing themes.
Who has been a guest on Dark Poetry
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Christina Georgina Rossetti
Robert Ervin Howard
Wilfred Owen
Thomas Hardy
John Keats
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Apple Podcasts (US)
4.7 / 5
41 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 49 / 100
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YouTube
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Engagement
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