A podcast that introduces some of the finest lyric poems in the English language. Focusing on form and sound, Influential Lyrics helps listeners actually hear and appreciate the wisdom and artistry of the language.
This episode focuses on Blake's poem "The Lamb" from the Songs of Innocence. As usual, the podcast offers a reading of the poem, and explication, and some further commentary about the meaning, value, and significance of the work. In particular, the discussion introduces Blake's concept of Innocence with the help of some recent research in the study of consciousness itself. The two subsequent episodes will elaborate on this essential aspect of Blake's art by setting Innocence in dialogue with its "contrary," Experience.
9 Jun 2026
William Wordsworth's "I wandered lonely as a cloud"
In the previous episode of Influential Lyrics, we considered a famous sonnet in which Wordsworth laments what he sees as a growing alienation from the natural world as people are increasingly caught up in a materialist culture of "getting and spending." That poem, you may recall, concludes with the speaker longing for a more profound and reciprocal relationship with nature, but it doesn't really offer any reason why such a relationship would be so essential to the flourishing of humankind. The present poem—arguably Wordsworth's most famous—offers an answer to that question. In "I wandered lonely as a cloud" (a.k.a. the Daffodil poem), Wordsworth crafts his own experience of a scene of natural beauty into a psychological—perhaps even spiritual—model that demonstrates the sustaining power of an appreciation of natural beauty. At 24 lines, the poem is slightly longer than most of the Influential Lyrics offerings, but its short tetrameter lines, its decisive rhyme words, and its simple narrative make it a most memorable poem. The present podcast offers a reading of the poem, an explication, and some commentary explaining why this "simple" poem is so significant within its broader historical contexts.
13 May 2026
William Wordsworth's "The world is too much with us"
William Wordsworth (1770-1850), one of the central figures of British Romantic literature, is widely known as a nature poet. He is one of the first writers to develop a sophisticated exploration of the relationship between the natural world and the psychological, perhaps even spiritual flourishing of human beings. This poem in particular is one of Wordsworth's most widely known sonnets, but I've included it here in Influential Lyrics for a particular reason: this poem, together with a lyric called "I wandered lonely as a cloud" which we'll consider in the next episode, will help illustrate a sea-change in much of Western culture that happened in the late 18th and early 19th centuries and that was a driving force of Romantic period poetry in English and that still echoes through economic, political, and environmental thinking in the 21st century.
19 Apr 2026
Charlotte Smith's "Written at the Close of Spring"
This episode focuses on a sonnet by Charlotte Smith, one of the best (and certainly one of the most underrated) poets of the late 18th century. The podcast offers a reading of the poem, an explication, and some commentary on the meaning, value, and significance of the work--particularly in light of Smith's own biography, her status as a woman writer, her place in the "Literature of Sensibility," and her historical importance as a catalyst for the Romantic movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
2 Apr 2026
Alexander Pope, from Essay on Criticism
The present podcast is something of a deviation for Influential Lyrics. Rather than focusing on a single, short, self-contained lyric poem, I'll be focusing today on an excerpt from a longer work called Essay on Criticism, written and published in the early 18th century by Alexander Pope. My reasoning for this swerve is simple enough: there is plenty to take issue with in Pope's philosophy of poetry—and much of the poetry we'll be considering in the next few episodes is a reaction to the neo-classical formality so clearly exemplified by Pope—but a familiarity with, even an affinity for, Pope's technique offers as clear an understanding of the fundamentals of English prosody as you'll find anywhere.
8 Mar 2026
Anne Bradstreet's "By Night when Others Soundly Slept"
This is a seemingly simple, uncomplicated, but intensely religious poem in which the speaker, while lying awake at night, is comforted by a visitation from her Saviour, presumably Jesus, and she rededicates herself to the service of her religion. The poem itself is easy enough to understand, though when seen in the context of Bradstreet's extraordinary biography, we can begin to see why she was such a remarkable and influential writer.
19 Oct 2025
Richard Lovelace, "To Althea: from Prison"
Richard Lovelace (1618-1657) is not quite so famous as some of the other poets featured here on Influential Lyrics, but his work offers some of the best examples of "Cavalier Poetry"--a mode of writing that came into prominence in the middle years of the 17th century. The Cavalier Poets (so named because of their loyalty to King Charles I) produced dozens of poems that celebrate aspects of the "good life." Beauty, love, friendship, and loyal dedication are among the key themes, all typically presented in a joyful live-for-today, carpe diem attitude. The present podcase offers an explication of Lovelace's most famous poem, complete with the necessary historical backgrounds and a brief commentary on the nature of poetic language.
19 Oct 2025
George Herbert, "The Collar"
In 1633, one Nicholas Ferrars arranged for the publication of a book written by a close friend who had recently died. The book was called The Temple; Ferrars' friend was a small-town pastor and poet—George Herbert—who has since become one of the most highly revered religious poets in the language. Herbert's "The Collar" is an extraordinary poem by this extraordinary poet. The poem expresses a familiar psychological and perhaps spiritual conflict between the desire for freedom and worldly pleasure and the commitment to a more quietly constrained life of piety and religious devotion.
13 Oct 2025
John Donne's "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning"
John Donne's "Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" was probably written to his wife Ann in 1611 when Donne was preparing to travel to the Continent. The poem, however, is much more significant than this very specific occasion might suggest. It stands both as one of the most celebrated of English love poems and also as a clear example of Donne's quirky style as a "metaphysical poet." The present podcast offers a reading of the poem followed by a detailed explication and a discussion of "metaphysical poetry."
13 Jul 2025
William Shakespeare, Sonnet #12
The 1609 publication of Shakespeare's Sonnets raises several literary-historical questions, many of which remain unresolved, but what we do know is that most of the first 120-some sonnets appear to be addressed to a handsome young man (WH?) while the last 30 or so are about a person who has come to be known as the "Dark Ladie." And we know that the first 17 sonnets—often called the "Procreation Sonnets"—are each rhetorical addresses to the younger man, encouraging him to have children. The present podcast focuses on Sonnet #12 which offers an excellent example of Shakespeare's imagery and formal ingenuity.
10 Jul 2025
Sir Thomas Wyatt, "The Long Love that in my thought doth harbour..."
This episode focuses on Sir Thomas Wyatt's early sonnet entitled "The Long Love that in My Thought Doth Harbour." By providing some background knowledge about the "courtly love" tradition and the "conceit" technique, the explication offers both a close reading of the sonnet and some useful context for understanding 16th-century poetry and poetics.
19 Jun 2025
Sir Patrick Spens
In 1765, Bishop Thomas Percy published his 3-volume Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. The book introduced a number of late medieval poems into the English literary canon, the most famous of which is the popular ballad called "Sir Patrick Spens." This episode includes a reading of the poem, a brief explication, and some commentary on the meaning, value, and significance of the work.
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