Soothing classical poetry with guided meditations to help you get to sleep. Relax to theater professor Jeff Kaplan's calming voice as you drift into dreams.
Episode 13: A Sleeply Long Goblin Poem—"Goblin Market," by Christina Rossetti
Follow theater professor Jeff Kaplan's relaxing voice into as he guides you into sleep. This evening features a delightful long work, "Goblin Market" (1862), by Victorian-era writer, Chistina Rossetti. In this story, sisters Lizzie and Laura witness a goblin market night after night, filled with sumptuous fruit, and danger—a perfect bedtime story. Stay tuned for next week for the concluding half of the poem. With deep breathing, along with progressive relaxation, the gentle cadence of t...
30 Jun 2025
Episode 12: Sleepy Poems by Women Writers—Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sara Teasdale, Christina Rossetti, & Matilda Blind
Follow theater professor Jeff Kaplan's relaxing voice into as he guides you into sleep. This evening features beautiful works by important women writers. Poets include Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sara Teasdale, Christina Rossetti, & Matilda Blind. With deep breathing, along with progressive relaxation, the gentle cadence of the episode will lull you into peace. Full best results, listen with headphones while lying down in a place where you won't be disturbed. Original gu...
23 Jun 2025
Episode 11: Sleepy Poems about Dancing—William Butler Yeats, Emily Dickinson, Lewis Carrol, Sir Henry Newbolt, & Richard Lovelace
Follow theater professor Jeff Kaplan's relaxing voice into as he guides you into sleep. This evening features beautiful poems about dancing by William Butler Yeats, Emily Dickinson, Lewis Carrol, Sir Henry Newbolt, & Richard Lovelace. With deep breathing, along with progressive relaxation, the gentle cadence of the episode will lull you into peace. Full best results, listen with headphones while lying down in a place where you won't be disturbed. Original guided meditation sc...
17 Jun 2025
Episode 10: A Sleepy Long Poem about Nature—Edna St. Vincent Milay
Follow theater professor Jeff Kaplan's relaxing voice into as he guides you into sleep. This evening features a beautiful long poem by Edna St. Vincent Milay, "Renascence" (1912), about a speaker who experiences a spiritual death and rebirth through the act of beholding nature. Milay's virtuosic rhyming proves hypnotic. With deep breathing, along with progressive relaxation, the gentle cadence of the episode will lull you into peace. Full best results, listen with headphone...
10 Jun 2025
Episode 9: Sleepy Sonnets about Sleep—William Shakespeare
Follow Jeff Kaplan's relaxing voice into as he guides you into sleep. This evening features beautiful sonnets by William Shakespeare about sleep. Works include Sonnet 27 ("Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed"); Sonnet 28 "(How can I then return in happy plight); Sonnet 43 ("When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see"); and Sonnet 61 ("Is it thy will, thy image should keep open"). With deep breathing, along with progressive relaxation, the gentle cadence of the epis...
3 Jun 2025
Episode 8: Sleepy Poems about the Rain— Emily Dickinson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Aunt Effie
Follow Jeff Kaplan's relaxing voice into as he guides you into sleep. The evening features beautiful poems about the soothing quality of rain. Works include "A Drop fell on the Apple Tree," (1890) by Emily Dickinson, "Rain in Summer" (1845) by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and “Little Raindrops" (1860) by Aunt Effie. With deep breathing, along with progressive relaxation, the gentle cadence of the episode will lull you into peace. Full best results, listen with headphon...
17 Oct 2023
Episode 7: Sleepy Poems by Robert Frost
Follow Jeff Kaplan's relaxing voice into as he guides you into sleep. The evening's beautiful poems feature Four by Frost: four popular poems by Robert Frost, perhaps America's greatest poet. Works include "The Mending Wall" (1914), "The Road Not Taken" (1916), “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" (1923), and "Acquainted with the Night" (1928). With deep breathing, along with progressive relaxation, the gentle cadence of the episode will lull you into peace. Full best res...
13 Oct 2023
Episode 6: Sleepy Poems of the Stars—Jane Taylor, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Keats, Lucretia Maria Davidson, Sara Teasdale, & Emily Dickinson
Follow Jeff Kaplan's relaxing voice into as he guides you into sleep. The evening's beautiful poems explore the wonder of the stars. Poems include Jane Taylor's "The Star" (1806), Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "The Light of the Stars” (1838), John Keats' "Bright Star" (1819), Lucretia Maria Davidson's "To a Star" (1824), Sara Teasdale's "Winter Stars" (1920), and Emily Dickinson's “Ah Moon-and Star!” (ca. 1830-86). With deep breathing, along with progressive relax...
9 Oct 2023
Episode 5: Sleepy Poems of the Moon—Percy Bysshe Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, William Stanley Braithwaite, E.E. Cummings, Sara Teasdale, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, & William Blake
Follow Jeff Kaplan's relaxing voice into as he guides you into sleep. The evening's beautiful poems explore the moon as a universal symbol of the night. Poems include Percy Bysshe Shelley's "To the Moon" (1817); Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Moon" (1885); William Stanley Braithwaite's "Golden Moonrise" (1902); E.E. Cummings' "Amores (III)" (1925); Sara Teasdale's "Dusk in Autumn" (1914); Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's "A Hymn to the Moon" (ca. 18th c.); and William Blake's "Smi...
6 Oct 2023
Episode 4: Sleepy Poems from Ancient English—William Shakespeare, Geoffrey Chaucer, & anonymous Anglo-Saxon poets
Follow Jeff Kaplan's relaxing voice into as he guides you into sleep. Tonight's beautiful poems harken back to the English language's distant past. From William Shakespeare's "Sonnet 18: Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day" (1609) in its original pronunciation, we hear the "General Prologue" in Middle English from Geoffrey Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" (1387). Then, we hear the ancient echoes of Old English of the Lord's Prayer as it might have sounded in the 11th century....
3 Oct 2023
Episode 3: Sleepy Poems of the Ocean—Edmund Spencer, Matthew Arnold, Rainer Maria Rilke, & Nathaniel Hawthorne
Follow Jeff Kaplan's relaxing voice into as he guides you into sleep. Tonight's beautiful poems all feature the ocean. Selections include Edmund Spencer's Sonnet LXXV, “One Day I Wrote Her Name Upon the Strand"; Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach"; Rainer Maria Rilke's "Song of the Sea"; and Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Ocean." With deep breathing, along with progressive relaxation, the gentle cadence of the episode will lull you into peace. Full best results, listen with h...
29 Sept 2023
Episode 2: Sleepy Poems About Sleep—William Shakespeare, John Keats, & Edgar Allen Poe
Follow Jeff Kaplan's relaxing voice into as he guides you into sleep. Tonight's poems all have to do with sleep. Poems include William Shakespeare's Sonnet 27 ("Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed"); To Sleep, by John Keats; A Dream within a Dream, by Edgar Allen Poe, and Shakespeare's Sonnet 43 ("When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see"). With deep breathing, along with progressive relaxation, the gentle cadence of the episode will lull you into peace. Full best re...
25 Sept 2023
Episode 1: Sleepy Poems of the Forest—William Shakespeare, Christina Rosetti, & Amos Russel Wells
Follow Jeff Kaplan's relaxing voice into a beautiful forest in your imagination as he guides you into sleep. Poems include Titania, Queen of the Faeries' speech from William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Nights Dream,;Twilight Calm, by Christina Rosetti; and The Comfort of the Woods, by Amos Russel Wells. With deep breathing, along with progressive relaxation, the gentle cadence of the episode will lull you into peace. Original guided meditation script written and performed by ...
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
YouTube views
50
Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
4 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 22 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
5
Social presence
0
YouTube
63
Engagement
32
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