Time Takes the Blame, but Someone Gave the Order
From Alden Carrow's Poetry Podcast · 21:15
Show by Alden Carrow
A city remembers nothing of itself. A tower stands broken on purpose. And a poet, four hundred years dead, argues that only verse survives — while his own house burned in Ireland. In Episode 45, we travel inland to Helmsley, a market town on the edge of the North York Moors, where a castle holds a question every ruin asks: *What good is it that I was?* Our guest poem is Edmund Spenser's "The Ruines of Time," six verses spoken by Verlame — Roman Verulamium — as she grieves not just her walls, but her erasure from memory. Then we stand beneath Helmsley Castle's half-ruined tower and ask who actually broke it. Not time. People. A garrison. A general. A banker's family who kept the wreck because it looked beautiful in the landscape. Here's what Spenser got wrong: he blamed time for every ruin. This week, we meet the hands behind the damage — and the hands that decided to keep these broken things standing. Pour something warm. Stay awhile. There is poetry to be found in the everyday, and a story written in stone. **New to the podcast? Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen — free, and it arrives every Wednesday morning.** QHZZXGBVPUTJ5EF2
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