This is simply me reading stuff. Poems, essays, letters, recipes, and whatever else feels alive in the moment — mixed with my own rambling thoughts, laughter, and honest reflections on life, art, and everything in between. Think of it as having lunch with a good friend: warm, unfiltered, and admittedly a little bit strange. A space where we can escape together with books, encourage each other, and feel a little less alone. Sincerely, Robyn O’Neil
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"He had been full of the idea so long, dreamed it right through to the end, waited with his teeth set, so to speak, at an inconceivable pitch of intensity." ~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby "I'm ready to take over the airwaves." ~Me, The Great Delusion LINKS +Josh Garvelink's SUBSTACK and INSTAGRA M +My SHOP +My WEBSITE +My INSTAGRAM +My SUBSTACK Thank you to anyone reading this. I so…
Thanking Mediocre Nurses, A Play by Robyn O'Neil ACT 1: Transparency about a failing enterprise ACT 2: Two questions and an answer ACT 3: Keep Dying, Keep Writing it Down ACT 4: Get Quiet LINKS +Buy C.K. Williams' Writers Writing Dying +Buy The Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus +My SHOP +My WEBSITE +My INSTAGRAM +My SUBSTACK
“We are amazing beings. We are neighbors of fire.” - Anne Carson Continuing to reread from some of ME READING STUFF's top rated books/writers, we celebrate living legend Anne Carson and Autobiography of Red , yet again. This is the 20th episode dedicated to Anne Carson, and it certainly won't be the last. Other topics include: hot dogs, stuffers, vacuuming, and my "nine months in Colombia". With…
This week, we return to everyone's favorite poetry book, Erratic Fire, Erratic Passion: The Poetry of Sportstalk by Pasha Malla and Jeff Parker. In Metta World Peace's poem, he discusses the difference between elbow and shell pasta. Anna Kournikova's poem talks about how many boyfriends she’s gonna kiss. And we end with an impromptu reading of the lyrics of superstar and friend to the show Cécile…
🎙️ The 11th Anniversary of ME READING STUFF 🎂 Dear listener, Well, we've officially been kicking it for ELEVEN YEARS. Through vasectomies, divorce, mystery illnesses, breakdowns, fevers, estrangement, Covid, moves, near-death experiences, remarriage, Las Vegas hotel rooms, heart surgeries, parenthood, hauntings, and meetings with the ©️Kleenex company. Think of how much water we've drunk since…
This week marks the return to THROWING BOOKS ACROSS THE ROOM!!!! So exciting. Dionne Brand 's "Islands Vanish" really had me feeling all sorts of things. It was a pleasure to read it to you. I extend appreciation to her for "hunting for slave castles with a pencil for explosives." Not many hunt so rigorously. It's shattering. This episode also includes an impassioned Recommendation Corner, a Mini…
This week, I read to you from a 1992 poetry anthology called The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart, edited by Robert Bly, James Hillman and Michael Meade. Wendell Berry's poem "Ripening" leads to a discussion about death and altar-building. I also kick a few people out of the podcast 😲, and bemoan my exhaustion levels. Thank you for listening - I love you guys❣️ LINKS: Buy The Rag and Bone Shop of…
"I know how furiously your heart is beating." ~Wallace Stevens, The Gray Room "The tense American nerve relaxed. I lived with a gray quietness that let the mind grow inward like a root." ~Paul Engle LINKS: Taschen's The Book of Symbols My Website My Shop My Substack My Instagram
On today's episode, I read from a MASSIVE birthday gift, A Century of Poetry in The New Yorker (1925 – 2025), Edited by Kevin Young. The readings are: Charles Simic's "This Morning" Anne Carson's "Epithalamium NYC" LINKS Buy A Century of Poetry in The New Yorker MY NEW WEBSITE Check out my friend Jack's website! My Instagram My Substack “If I believe in anything, it is in the dark night of the…
"I love to walk but I can't I love to swim but I can't I love to sit in the sun but I can't I love to smell the flowers but I can't I love to play tennis but I can't I love to water-ski but I can't" ~Andy Warhol "Lime flavored sparkling waters taste like Fruity Pebbles." ~Me LINKS: Buy The Philosophy of Andy Warhol Check out my Instagram Check out my Substack Check out my Website (FINALLY updating…
"I enjoy people best if I can be alone much of the time." – Octavia Butler "Talk is a privilege and one must deny oneself that privilege." – Martha Graham "I love saying "refrigerator."" – Me LINKS Pick up Mason Currey's Daily Ritual Books Follow Mason Currey's Substack Follow me on Instagram Buy my book 20 YEARS OF DRAWINGS Follow Anne J. Regan on Instagram The BIG Eastfork Mug I bought myself.
"Besides all those whaling details, Moby Dick is about someone who's looking for something so huge, something they've wanted all their life, yet they know when they find it, it will kill them." ~Laurie Anderson "Do you clean yourself well?" ~Me LINKS: Listen/Watch Laurie Anderson's O Superman My new Substack Post My newsletter signup at the bottom of MY WEBSITE. My FIRST COMIC ! My INSTAGRAM The…
Today's anonymous poem was found in my library book about Medieval Art and was dated Feb 7, 1958 ! How exciting is that?!? I also answer some listener questions & ask you some of my own in everyone's favorite segment - Question Corner. I wish you well, I hope you can gain acceptance of disappointment, and we shall find peace. With love, Robby LINKS: My Instagram My Youtube
Today, I explain how I use my fists to understand the days in a month. I regret (again) not learning Greek or its myths. We read Fuyue Anzai, Walt Whitman and Allen Ginsberg. We celebrate taking walks, aggressively. And something about Doritos. LINKS: Buy The Penguin Book of the Prose Poem HERE. Buy Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass HERE. Check out BLURRING BOOKS! Watch the Walt Whitman scene in Now,…
"I am one who does not think that the Earth was made for us. I think that we are first to last strangers on it, and that it takes us a good first half of our lives just to get used to gravity. That it's not easy." -Michael Silverblatt LINKS: Visit the Bookworm ARCHIVES . Buy David Markson books on INDIEBOUND . Watch Michael Silverblatt at Cornell HERE . Listen to David Markson on Bookworm .
"I think mostly about clothes, sex, food, and seasonal variations. I have done so much to be ordinary and made a record of this: first I was born, next I was a child, then I learned things and did things and loved and had those who loved me and often felt alone. My body was sometimes well, then sometimes unwell. I got nearer to death, as did you." -Anne Boyer, Garments Against Women "I think…
"Twisting it in the right hand - I love another." via The Public Domain Review "Donna Logan felt badly for her younger sister, Katie, ,who was suffering from acne." via The Bold and the Beautiful: 10th Anniversary Celebration LINKS Visit The Public Domain Review Watch The Bold and the Beautiful My Instagram My Substack Join Grig's Poetry Party Listen/Watch to Anne Carson's Lecture on Corners.
Tonight, we have a Recommendation Corner (it's been a while!), a return to Vasko Popa, praise for Valentine's Day whether you like it or not, and some new sound clips 🖤 And I'll miss you forever, Billy. I'm devestated. Love, Robyn p.s. can you believe I'm back for a 3rd week in a row? I can't! LINKS Buy Vasko Popa's Complete Works My Instagram My Substack My Website
If you grew up in the 70s and 80s like me, you certainly know Geri Jewell. If you don't know the full breadth of her career, you will for sure know "Cousin Geri", Blair Warner's comedian cousin with cerebral palsy from The Facts of Life. I have adored her from the first moment I saw her on TV, and recently read her 2011 autobiography I'm Walking as Straight as I Can: Transcending Disability in…
Today, we head back to Encyclopedia Corner, exploring the letter "A". Also discussed: The Prinzhorn Collection, Jean Dubuffet, Hypergraphia, Emma Hauck, Ants, Animals, The San Fernando Valley, Cardiology, and Cockroaches, Nudity, and Adoption. LINKS: My Substack My Instagram
"My paintings are certainly nonobjective. They're just horizontal lines." - Agnes Martin "Oh really, bitch? I don't think so!" - My Body LINKS: Learn more about artist Agnes Martin HERE . Buy "On Beauty" by Agnes Martin through PACE . Buy "Oxford Dictionary of Difficult Words" on INDIEBOUND .
"The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness." - Vladimir Nabokov "I love ruled paper." - Me LINKS: Buy The Best American Essays of The Century Buy Merriam-Webster's Vocabulary Builder Learn more about my drawing HELL See James Ensor in front of Christ's Entry Into Brussels in 1889 as an old man.
Dear You, We last spoke in January and I've missed you; I've missed this. A lot has happened. A lot has not. Let's pick back up where we left off, but let's make it better and more loving this time. Let's not let the hoards of negatives overshadow the rest — the ever-present glimmerings of light. I simply can't anymore. I woke up different after that night. I even had pink cheeks for the first…
"It is certainly true that the larger and older the living thing is, the harder it is to know how to care for it." - Lydia Davis "I barely know what a uterus is for God's sake." - Me LINKS: Buy "The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis" HERE. Become a Subscriber on My Substack! Become a Paid Subscriber and get a drawing! My Instagram My Website My Youtube
"Help! I'm David from Sesame Street, and they're trying to kill me!" - Northern Calloway "Grab the broom of anger and drive off the beast of fear." - Zora Neale Hurston LINKS: The Wikipedia article on Northern Calloway My Substack Damien Jurado's record label - Maraqopa
Praying for apathy, deciding towards easy. Love, Robyn LINKS: Buy Joshua Rivkin's Chalk: The Art and Erasure of Cy Twombly Here is my SUBSTACK! Here is my website. The Cy Twombly Gallery Robert Rauschenberg Jasper Johns Henry Darger
"The people who have made me feel the worst were always my best friends." -Detective Olivia Benson "I'll never sell 14 million like Hammer, I just wanna do a good Ice-T show." - Ice-T LINKS: Get your drawing! Subscribe to my Substack Watch the Driver 23 / Atlas Moth Trailer Watch the Fitzcarraldo Trailer The NBC article on Steve Zirnkilton Listen to the Steve Zirnkilton Law & Order SVU Intro Buy…
Dear Boss, I am sick. Love, Robyn
A - ABLE-MINDED B - BICUSPID C - CROSS-EXAMINATION K - Keeping You Company With love, Robyn LINKS: Well, I've never linked to Amazon for books, but that seems to be the only place I see Leonard Cohen's Book of Mercy, so head over there to buy it! There's also a set of several of his books on there that look really great, so maybe do that! My Subtack MY Shop
LINKS: My Substack Buy my book HERE . Watch American Movie HERE .
"Lighting ranks as the most important factor in seeing." "Writing letters helps bring friends closer together." "Plans for lightning should provide the greatest possible light needed for any task." "Be sure than every statement you make is correct." "A bolt of lightning can kill a person or start a forest fire." -All quotes from 1964's World Book Encyclopedia - "L" LINKS My Substack Subterranean…
"I must decline, for secret reasons." ~E.B. White LINKS: My Substack See Letters of Note on Instagram ME READING STUFF shirts at the bottom of THIS page. California Scrub Jay Stellar's Jay
"A trotting animal can restore red hearts to red." - Anne Carson (Short Talk on My Task) LINKS: Buy Anne Carson's Short Talks Listen to Anne Carson's reading on "Shade" (it's at the 19 minute mark, but you should listen to the entire thing) Listen to me reading her writing on Shade from years ago. Buy my Book on my website. And if you're a pickle guy, like me, here are BRITT'S and BEST MAID!
"In the end I would rather wonder than know." -Mary Ruefle LINKS: Follow me on Substack: https://robynoneil.substack.com/ Buy "Madness, Rack, and Honey" "Red" read by Mary Ruefle herself! Buy "I Am: The Selected Poetry of John Clare"
D'Agata writes in the introduction to The Making of the American Essay: "The world provides non-fiction, and humans provide the rest." My own work has been dealing endlessly with the problems humans incessantly seem to provide. In desperation, I now pray that for the rest of my days, my eyes can shift their focus to the innumerable glories & ongoing wisdom humans also deliver. LINKS: My new…
"'I have never been one of those who cares about happiness. Happiness is a strange notion. I am just not made for it." - Werner Herzog "People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they're doing." - Dale Carnegie "People rarely have fun in what they're doing unless they succeed." - Me " ….ENJOY your mothafuckin' YOUTH.... while you GOT IT. Whatever the fuck you trynna do in yo DREAMS and…
Tonight, I give you a reading from New Directions' Love Poems of Catullus and a reiteration of my preference for the CH Sissen translation of Catullus 85. Art event or not, put it all on a Carr's Table Water Cracker. And if you have an interest in words, take 2 minutes to try this podcast out: Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day. Thank you guys for listening, loving, hating. Always. xo, Robyn
An After Dark Episode! Tonight I read from Emily Dickinson's Final Harvest: https://bookshop.org/p/books/final-harvest-poems-emily-dickinson/110106?ean=9780316184151 I explain how this book by Alex Soojung Kim Pang both solved my life & ignited a nervous breakdown the size of Pangaea: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/alex-soojung-kim-pang/rest/9781541617162/?lens=basic-books Other things:…
"Go inside a stone. That would be my way. Let somebody else become a dove." -Charles Simic Buy absolutely anything by Charles Simic. Buy " The Language of Letting Go " Daily Meditations by Melody Beattie. And thank you for being with me today. I've missed you guys. Love, Robyn
"We're animals, Amy. And some animals like to party. For me, God is a beer on the beach. Maybe that's fucked up, but at least it's honest." - Levi, Enlightened "Inside my empty bottle I was constructing a lighthouse while all others were making ships." - Charles Simic "Today wasn't anything spectacular and that's what I loved about it." Me, January 2, 2023 LINKS: Watch "Enlightened" on HBO HERE .…
"Modern natural philosophers have found God in the folds of the skin of the rhinoceros." - Voltaire "I found the saltiest, greasiest corn chip at the bottom of this Juanita's bag this morning. It totally blew my mind." - Me LINKS: Buy the book here: https://www.ndbooks.com/book/an-elemental-thing/ See what you think about these Daniel Ladinsky "HAFIZ" books:…
Checking in after a long illness. Can't wait to start talking with you guys again! LINKS: Send your questions/comments/concerns to: info@robynoneil.com My website: www.robynoneil.com Me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/robyn_oneil/?hl=en
"We got to install microwave ovens, custom kitchen deliveries." - Dire Straits "I love turkey sandwiches." - Me LINKS: Check out the Dire Straits video for "Money For Nothing" HERE ! See Damien Jurado's website for tickets to his upcoming 25th anniversary show. My #1 Favorite Damien live video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1d1eobg9QY My #2 Favorite Damien live video:…
"It is always tricky, the question whether to read an author’s work in light of his life or not." -Anne Carson "If you can drink a beer, you can smell patchouli." - Me LINKS: Check out "The Albertine Workout" by Anne Carson HERE and buy it at your nearest independent bookseller. Listen to Anne Carson reading from "The Albertine Workout" HERE . SMELL LINKS: Zum Laundry Soap Zum Bar Soap Pacha Soap…
"I was most happy when pen and paper were taken from me and I was forbidden from doing anything. I had no anxiety about doing nothing by my own fault, my conscience was clear, and I was happy. This was when I was in prison." - Daniil Kharms "I'm exhausted." - Me LINKS: Buy "Today I Wrote Nothing" HERE (or wherever you buy books except Amazon). Buy a ME READING STUFF slut shirt or hoodie HERE ! See…
“I think I want, but what is it that I want? Do I want something? I don’t know." - Patrizia Cavalli "Kids tend to think of my violence as funny." - Me LINKS: Buy Patrizia Cavalli's "My Poems Won't Change the World" HERE . Check out my American Movie podcast HERE . Buy a "ME READING STUFF" shirt or sweatshirt HERE . See my drawings in "HELL and the Paradisal" HERE. Get free shipping on all books in…
"You hear so much talk about risk-taking in poetry. Lying is a form of risk-taking, but no one talks about that." - Mary Ruefle "The End." - Me ______________________________________________ LINKS: Buy Madness, Rack, and Honey at WAVE BOOKS. Buy a "ME READING STUFF" shirt or sweatshirt HERE . See my drawings in "HELL and the Paradisal" HERE. Get free shipping on all books in my SHOP! (use Coupon…
"We all have reasons for moving. I move to keep things whole." - Mark Strand "Have you guys seen the new squeezable sauerkraut?!?" - Me LINKS: Purchase Mark Strand's "Selected Poems" HERE . Check out my Artforum review! Buy a "ME READING STUFF" shirt or sweatshirt HERE . See my drawings in "HELL and the Paradisal" HERE. Get free shipping on all books in my SHOP! (use Coupon Code "BOOK") Check out…
"Such fun waking up though! Such fun too if you don't! Keep dying! Keep writing it down!" - C.K. Williams "Message received." - Me LINKS: Buy "Writers Writing Dying" by C.K. Williams HERE . Buy "Rest" by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang HERE . Sign up for my newsletter HERE . Check out my show at Inman Gallery HERE .
"Jeff, roommate: Left my stuff all over the house; left the fridge a mess. Mary, friend: Promised to make her a clock. Made it, but never gave it to her." -Workaholics Anonymous "Monica, Starbucks boss: Pretended I got a "gig" in Hollywood to be killed off in a horror movie. Never returned to job. Peter, Gallery Owner: Lied during a studio visit about how long I'd lived in California for no reason…
