John Green Reads Poetry

H: It’s a comedy podcast about death where my brother and I answer questions, give you dubious advice, and bring you all the week’s news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. Hey John, how you doing?

J: Uh, good. Actually not. Not good. Couple things, first off I’ve had a bad week, just like a difficult personal week health-wise. As you know, Hank, this is personal, but I have a brain illness called Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and I’ve been in the process of switching medications which has not been fun. Also, in possibly even worse news, the Taylor Swift summer that we were blessed with here in Indianapolis has officially ended. There was 48 straight hours of rain and now it is cold. (Hank laughs) So the darkness has descended, the sky here in Indianapolis is so close to the ground that I feel like I could reach up and touch it, and Taylor Swift is well and truly gone. How are you?

H: I’m so sorry to here that. It is also quite gloomy here. If I looked out the window and didn’t know anything about what time it actually was I would guess that it was about seven o’clock at night.

J: Yeah.

H: It is in fact noon. It’s just really dark and overcast and, in personal health news, as long as we’re going there, I take a medicine that makes my life much, much better but also makes everything taste bad. It’s awful.

J: Yeah. I also am feeling very frustrated with medication side effects at the moment.

H: Yeah. It doesn’t do it all the time. I’ll have, I’ll go weeks and I’ll be like “Ah, it went away. Yay.” And then I’ll wake up one morning and I’ll be like “Wow, my mouth tastes really bad” and then I’ll brush my teeth and I’ll be like “Wow, my toothpaste tastes really bad.” And then I’ll go have breakfast and I’ll be like “This is, there’s something wrong with this banana” and it turns out that that’s just my life for the next few weeks.

J: Hmm. A comedy podcast about two middle-aged men and their chronic health problems.

H: (chuckles) Well, you gotta know that, uh, life isn’t always gonna be… milkshakes.

J: Ah, I was just talking to my psychiatrist about this very thing, which was that when I was in college, and I first became aware that I was, uh, mentally ill, I — I believed somehow that this was something, that this was a problem of one’s teens and early twenties. But it turns out that you — that you are stuck inside of the same brain for your entire life. So, anyway, I am doing OK. I am doing much better today than I was on Monday, when we were first supposed to record this podcast and I just had to cancel. Can I read you a short poem that will hopefully cheer us both up?

H: Let’s do it!

J: Alright. It’s by E. E. Cummings. It’s called “I Thank You God For Most This Amazing”.

(Reads poem)

E. E. Cummings. A poem from, uh, I think the 1940s, but I’m not positive.

H: That was nice. Thanks for that poem, John.

J: Yeah. It’s a good one. E. E. Cummings, you know, specializes in the poetry of, uh, surprisingly optimistic. That would be my description of E. E. Cummings’ poetry.

I thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.

I who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birthday

of life, and of love, and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth.

How should tasting, touching, hearing, seeing,
breathing, any lifted from the no
of all thing human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

Now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened.