<p>In this episode, Roy Foster reads &#8220;Sailing to Byzantium&#8221; by William Butler Yeats. Foster is Emeritus Professor of Irish History at the University of Oxford and the author of many books, including his classic, two-volume biography of Yeats, published in 1997 and 2003. In a review of the first volume published in the <em>New York Review of Books</em>, the Irish novelist John Banville wrote: “<em>W.B. Yeats: A Life</em> is a great and important work, a triumph of scholarship, thought, and empathy such as one would hardly have thought possible in this age of disillusion. It is an achievement wholly of a scale with its heroic subject.”</p> <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-spotify wp-block-embed-spotify wp-embed-aspect-21-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"> <div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> https://open.spotify.com/episode/2EPxyqHWa7nQJB5SKB1BDj </div> </figure> <p><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43291/sailing-to-byzantium">“Sailing to Byzantium”</a> by William Butler Yeats was first published in 1927 and included in his magnificent collection, <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/305249/the-tower-by-w-b-yeats/9780241303092"><em>The </em>Tower</a>, published in 1928. To learn more about Yeats&#8217; life and work, look no further than Roy Foster&#8217;s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Apprentice-Mage-1865-1914-W-B-Yeats/dp/0192880853">W.B Yeats: A Life, Vol. I: The Apprentice Mage </a>and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/W-B-Yeats-Arch-Poet-1915-1939/dp/0198184654">Vol. II: The Arch-Poet</a>.</p> <p>We feature one short listener poem at the end of every episode. To submit, call the Haiku Hotline at 612-440-0643 and read your poem after the beep. For the occasional prompt, follow us on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/haikuhotline/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Facebook</a>.</p> <p>Subscribe on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/interesting-people-reading-poetry/id1265729382" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Apple Podcasts</a> or&nbsp;<a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/5QaSeDE4sAmOxZdWu5yN1M" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Spotify</a>.</p>