Jay Parini on Why Poetry Matters

A conversation between Dr Jay Parini, a prolific author and the D.E. Axinn Professor of English and Creative Writing at Middlebury College, and Dr Stephen Blackwood, the founding president of Ralston College, recorded on the occasion of the release of a Ralston College short course, “Robert Frost: The American Voice,” taught by Dr Parini. Dr Parini discusses the film adaptation of his most recent book Borges and Me (2020), shares stories of his friendships with literary figures including Jorge Luis Borges, W. H. Auden, and Iris Murdoch, explains why poetry matters, and shares the fruits of a life “lived in literature.”

Authors, Artists, and Works Mentioned in this Episode: 

• Jay Parini, Borges and Me
• Alan Cumming 
• Jorge Luis Borges
• Beowulf
• Robert Burns 
• Isaiah Berlin 
• Homer
• Aeschylus 
• Dante
• Michel de Montaigne 
• William Wordsworth
• W. B. Yeats
• Brian Friel, Dancing at Lughnasa
• Robert Burns, “A Red, Red Rose” 
• William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
• Iris Murdoch, The Bell 
• W.H. Auden
• Boethius 
• Jay Parini, Robert Frost: A Life 
• Robert Frost, “Fire and Ice”
• Jay Parini, Robert Frost: 16 Poems to Learn by Heart
• Robert Frost, “The Road Less Traveled” 
• Robert Frost, “After Apple-Picking”
• Robert Frost, “Birches”
• Robert Frost, “Directive” 
• Robert Frost, “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening”
• Gerard Manley Hopkins
• Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning 
• T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets