This special October episode features a ghost story from William Maxwell’s novel The Château. Set in a harsh, old-fashioned classroom where children recite their lessons, its haunting force is a shapeshifting memory double—squarely in the “A Lovely Wallpaper” wheelhouse. Guest reader is fiction writer Christine Schutt, author of Pure Hollywood, Prosperous Friends, All Souls, and more. No poem, no interview—just understated, literary thrills and chills.

In this episode, Abby interviews art historian Marie Warsh about her book Central Park's Adventure-Style Playgrounds, about growing up surrounded by poetry and art on the Lower East side, and about her work to revive the legacies of unsung female artists. Together, they present an excerpt of “The Garden” by Bernadette Mayer, Marie's mother.
Recitation begins at 45:50

from "The Garden" by Bernadette Mayer

If all our eyes had the clarity of apples
In a world as altered
As if by the wood betony
And all kinds of basil were the only riders of the land
It would be good to be together
Both under and above the ground
To be sane as the madwort,
Ripe as corn, safe as sage,
Various as dusty miller and hens & chickens,
In politics as kindly fierce and dragonlike as tarragon,
Revolutionary as the lily.

In this episode, Abby interviews radical mycologist James Oliver about mushrooms and his work healing post-fire sites with mycelium at The Center for Applied Ecological Remediation (CAER). Together, they present the poem "Mushrooms," by Sylvia Plath.
Recitation begins at 47:22

Mushrooms
Sylvia Plath

Overnight, very
Whitely, discreetly,
Very quietly
Our toes, our noses
Take hold on the loam,
Acquire the air.
Nobody sees us,
Stops us, betrays us;
The small grains make room.
Soft fists insist on
Heaving the needles,
The leafy bedding,
Even the paving.
Our hammers, our rams,
Earless and eyeless,
Perfectly voiceless,
Widen the crannies,
Shoulder through holes. We
Diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking
Little or nothing.
So many of us!
So many of us!
We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,
Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies:
We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot's in the door.

In this episode, Abby interviews harpist and composer Mary Lattimore about her most recent album Goodbye, Hotel Arkada, her musical collaborations, and her instrument in all its epic visceral and metaphorical power. Together, they present “The Pity of Love” by William Butler Yeats.
Recitation begins at 34:38

The Pity of Love
William Butler Yeats

A pity beyond all telling
Is hid in the heart of love:
The folk who are buying and selling,
The clouds on their journey above,
The cold wet winds ever blowing,
And the shadowy hazel grove

Where mouse-grey waters are flowing,

Threaten the head that I love.

In this episode, Abby interviews writer Lucy Sante about recent books *Nineteen Reservoirs* and *I Heard Her Call My Name*. Together, they present an excerpt of the poem "Zone" by Guillaume Apollinaire.
Recitation begins at 45:07

from "Zone"
Guillaume Apollinaire

Now you walk in Paris alone in a crowd

Herds of buses drive past mooing loud

Your throat is gripped with love’s pain

As if you should never be loved again

If you lived in the past you’d enter a monastery

You’re ashamed to catch yourself saying a prayer

You jeer at yourself and your laughter crackles like hellfire

The background of your life is gilded by the sparks from your laughter

It’s like paintings hung in a dark museum

Sometimes you step up close to see them

In this episode, Abby interviews Talon Knight aka Robert Shallow, about falconry, owls, and the SoCal Renaissance Faire. Terri Casey, director of the Queen’s Court, joins in to read “An Eagle for an Emperor” by Dame Juliana Berners. Recitation begins at 24:06.

An Eagle for an Emperor
Dame Juliana Berners

An Eagle for an Emperor,
a Gyrfalcon for a King,
a Peregrine for a Prince,
a Saker for a Knight,
a Merlin for a Lady,
a Goshawk for a Yeoman,
a Sparrowhawk for a Priest,
a Musket for a Holy water Clerk,
a Kestrel for a Knave.

In this episode, Abby Walthausen interviews Kate Lebo, author of *Pie School* and *Pie and Whiskey*, about the essays and recipes in *The Book of Difficult Fruit: Arguments for the Tart, Tender, and Unruly*. For memory, Lebo presents both a short rule of thumb for pie crust and Robert Frost's "The Rose Family." Recitation begins at 32:50.

Guest Marie Darrieussecq, author of more than 20 novels, discusses two of her non-fiction books *Sleepless: A Memoir of Insomnia* and *Being Here is Everything: The Life of Paula Modersohn-Becker*. She reads an excerpt of Rainier Maria Rilke's “Requiem for a Friend.” Recitation begins at 28:31.

Rainier Maria Rilke: from “Requiem for a Friend”

And fruits: I will buy fruits; and in their sweetness
that country's earth and sky will live again.
For that is what you understood: ripe fruits.
You set them before the canvas, in white bowls,
and weighed out each one's fullness with your colors.
Women too, you saw, were fruits; and children, moulded
from inside, into the shapes of their existence.
And at last, you saw yourself as a fruit, you stepped
out of your clothes and brought your naked body
before the mirror, you let yourself inside
down to your gaze; which stayed in front, immense,
and didn't say, I am that; no: This is.

In this episode, Abby Walthausen interviews Ishion Hutchinson, author of the poetry collections *School of Instructions: a Poem*, *House of Lords and Commons*, and *Far District*. Born in Port Antonio, Jamaica, he is the W.E.B. Du Bois Professor in the Humanities at Cornell University. He reads William Shakespeare's Sonnet 66. Recitation begins at 43:20.

Sonnet 66
Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,
As, to behold desert a beggar born,
And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,
And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
And gilded honour shamefully misplaced,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
And strength by limping sway disabled,
And art made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill,
And simple truth miscalled simplicity,
And captive good attending captain ill:
Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,
Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.

In this episode, Abby Walthausen interviews Peter Orner, fiction writer and professor of English and Creative writing at Dartmouth College, for a special Bloomsday episode. For memory, they offer up James Joyce's "On the Beach at Fontana," a poem from a tiny chapbook called Pomes Penyeach, which offers a window into Joyce's family life in Trieste during the period when he was writing his masterpiece Ulysses.
Recitation begins at 35:20

On the Beach at Fontana
Wind whines and whines the shingle,
The crazy pierstakes groan;
A senile sea numbers each single
Slimesilvered stone.

From whining wind and colder
Grey sea I wrap him warm
And touch his trembling fineboned shoulder
And boyish arm.

Around us fear, descending
Darkness of fear above
And in my heart how deep unending
Ache of love!

In this episode, Abby interviews Jos Kley, former singer of the long running Dutch punk band The Ex. Together, they present the poem "One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop. Recitation begins at 35:08.

One Art
The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

In this episode, Abby interviews Catherine Robson, professor at NYU and author of "Heart Beats: Everyday Life and the Memorized Poem." Together, they present the poem "Casabianca" by Elizabeth Bishop. Recitation begins at 36:10.

Casabianca
Elizabeth Bishop

Love's the boy stood on the burning deck
trying to recite "The boy stood on
the burning deck." Love's the son
  stood stammering elocution
  while the poor ship in flames went down.

Love's the obstinate boy, the ship,
even the swimming sailors, who
would like a schoolroom platform, too,
  or an excuse to stay
  on deck. And love's the burning boy.

In this episode, Abby interviews Susie Boyt, author of several books, among them the novel Loved and Missed and the memoir My Judy Garland Life. Together, they present the poem "Piping Down the Valleys Wild," by William Blake.
Recitation begins at 25:10

Piping Down the Valleys Wild
William Blake

Piping down the valleys wild,
Piping songs of pleasant glee,
On a cloud I saw a child,
And he laughing said to me:—

"Pipe a song about a lamb:"
So I piped with merry cheer.
"Piper, pipe that song again:"
So I piped: he wept to hear.

"Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe,
Sing thy songs of happy cheer!"
So I sang the same again,
While he wept with joy to hear.

"Piper, sit thee down and write
In a book, that all may read—"
So he vanished from my sight;
And I plucked a hollow reed,

And I made a rural pen,
And I stained the water clear,
And I wrote my happy songs
Every child may joy to hear.