John Green Reads Poetry

J: Hank would you like a short poem for today?

H: Okay let’s do it.

J: This poem is by Frances Darwin Cornford, who Hank you’ll be pleased to know was a granddaughter of Charles Darwin himself. This poem is called On Rupert Brooke. Rupert Brooke was a World War I poet who died in World War I.

(Reads poem)

J: The long littleness of life, one of the great phrases about human existence I think I’ve ever come across. That poem was recommended by Sam, so thank you Sam. By the way Hank, Frances Cornford’s husband was named… Guess!

H: Uh, Charles Darwin!

J: Francis Cornford!

H: Oh interesting.

J: It was Frances and Francis.

H: It would’ve been fun it it’d been Charles Darwin and she just kept her maiden name instead of going back to her old… that’s what I was hoping for, but I was wrong. It maybe would’ve been my next guess, John, if you had asked again. Did you know–

J: Do you want to know what Frances Cornford’s father’s name was?

H: Francis Cornford?

J: No, Francis Darwin of course. Because he was a Darwin.

H: Oh g-d dangit.

J: Let’s move on to some question from our listeners.

H: I want to say first, John. Did you know that the god Apollo was born in a place?

J: I did not.

H: I just think that’s very strange, the whole panoply, the whole Greek god stuff, it’s all fascinating to me, and I think we understand it improperly in some ways because we are not of that world. And so we read and think about these things inside of our own frameworks. Only recently, and I don’t know why I learned this, but it was like “this city in Greece… the birthplace of Apollo.” And I was like, Apollo? God’s don’t get born. But of course they do, because it’s a different kind of thing. And that’s all I wanted to say, John. Is it time for other things? Is it time for questions? Is that the thing that we do?

A young Apollo, golden-haired,
Stands dreaming on the verge of strife,
Magnificently unprepared
For the long littleness of life.