The queens visit The Lowells in a game of "Amy Robert Lowell"

Support Breaking Form by reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE is available from Bridwell Press. James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

Notes:

Watch a brief biographical video about Amy Lowell here.

Poems we mention include these by Amy Lowell:

"Sword Blades and Poppy Seed"

"Opal"

"The Letter"

"A Winter Ride" (which includes the line "Everything mortal has moments immortal"; the poem appeared in her first book, A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass [Houghton Mifflin, 1912]).

"A Decade"

"September, 1918" (which we discuss at length)

And these by Robert Lowell:

"Night Sweat"

"Home After Three Months Away"

"The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket" which includes the line "The Lord survives the rainbow of his will."

"Reading Myself"

Watch a longer documentary about Robert Lowell here (~60 min).

Here's the music video for Chappell Roan's "Casual"

Here's an article about Amy and Robert Lowell that's worth reading.

Here's a link to "Amy Lowell: Selected Poems" edited by Honor Moore; watch Moore discuss Lowell here (~60 min).

Watch Naomi Shihab Nye read Amy Lowell's "The Garden by Moonlight."

Watch Kids Magazine TV

A bit about hyphenated use of words like "to-day" vs "today." In Old and in Middle English, the practice was to join the time with the preposition, using a hyphen "to-day," and "to-morrow," and "to-night," for instance. As the sense of their use as single notions developed, the two elements were brought together in written language (i.e., to night, to-night, and tonight). Nineteenth-century dictionaries opted for the hyphen in all three words. The OED shows hyphenated examples throughout the 19th century and into the early 20th. Latest examples are of to-day (1912), to-night (1908), and to-morrow (1927, with a possible further example as late as 1959). (Adapted from this article).