Welcome to Night Vale - 266 - The Return of Poetry Week

Episode Date: April 15, 2025

After an 11 year hiatus, Poetry Week has returned. Weather: "Fix-Its (and Favours)" by luggage Original episode art by Jessica Hayworth Read episode transcripts 2025-26 TOUR DATES Tix on sale now! UNLICENSED Season 2 is here! Only on AudiblePre-order the Welcome to Night Vale Roleplaying Game today! Sign up for the Night Vale newsletter for good news and recommendations. Patreon is how we exist! If you can, please help us keep making this show. Music: Disparition Logo: Rob Wilson Written by Joseph Fink, Jeffrey Cranor & Brie Williams Narrated by Cecil Baldwin Follow us on BlueSky, Facebook, and Instagram. Check out our books, live shows, store, membership program, and official recap show at welcometonightvale.com A production of Night Vale Presents. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, Nightville, it is Jeffrey Craneer speaking to you from April of 2026 with a couple of cool things coming up. First off, we're going to be in Europe touring our newest Nightville live show, Murder Night in Blood Forest. We're going to be in Edinburgh, UK, on May 27th. We'll be in Manchester on the 28th. We will be in London on May 29th, and we will be in Amsterdam on May the 30th. You can get tickets for these shows at Welcome to Nightville.com slash live, and hopefully we'll have more. shows coming up later this year. Who knows? Just get on our newsletter. Go to Welcome to Nightville.com. Sign up for our newsletter. We will send you emails twice a month to let you know all of the news that you need to know about Welcome to Nightville. One of the big news things to tell you

right now is that our other hit podcast, Alice Isn't Dead, is coming back on April the 13th, written by Joseph Fink, produced by Disparition and starring Jacica Nicole. More episodes of Alice Isn't Dead return on April the 13th. So make sure you are still subscribe to that podcast. Finally, do you want some cool nightbale merch? Go to welcome to nightville.com, click on store, and we have all kinds of cool t-shirts, things

for the summer, tank tops, beach towels. And if you like coffee mugs, if you want calendars, if you want backpacks, all kinds of cool stuff there. So check out Welcome to Nightville.com and click on store, click on live. If you want to see our live shows, we will see you in Europe. And hey, thanks.

When you were little, you You've been braced in the course of recrace, always in trying to negotiate, to exchange these cards of hockey, the bonhom, these bracelets,

even of the collation. You know that each thing has a good idea, before to have been the things have not really changed.

Negoti T-D you can't to renewing with your instinct of with your instin of a negotiation, and without

operation gratuit, no amount of minimum and no free mensuel. You're made for negotiate,

and the appellate T-D is made to you help you need to That which does not kill us will lose its job at the killing factory. Welcome to Nightvale. Listeners, after an 11-year hiatus, Night Vale Poetry Week has returned. One of our most sacred town

traditions was banned after what happened last time. I'm not sure I can say aloud exactly what that was. It involved people entering a place they weren't supposed to Enter, I shouldn't tell you what place. I don't want you getting devious ideas, but that forbidden place rhymes with log park. So, this year, Nightville, let's just concentrate on getting those poems written. We need hundreds from each of you. Pretty much non-stop poetry writing. The librarians need to feed on your trokeys and alliterations.

they hunger for your slant rhymes and free verse. They don't particular care for limericks. If it's just like one or two, that's fine, but they prefer not to make a whole meal out of that junk. Oh, look, we've already gotten our first poem sent in. This is from Nazar al-Mujahid, and it's called an ode to Francis both of you. Oh, this looks like a sonnet.

Iambic pentameter, 14 lines. Ooh, I'm so excited. This reminds me of my Shakespearean acting class back in college when we had to learn monologues from Richard III and Tartouf and Sleepless in Seattle. Well, let's give Nazar's poem a read. If autumn trees and southbound birds can take for them a season's break, then I will make a solemn try to seize some time for you and me. We'll live 10,000 years as new lovers on satin sheets. Our legs awake, and arms adrift, and mouths agape for sake of seeing with our lips not eyes, the true wet red and ripe snap green of fruits that do live in endless leaves. Flowing capes of bees and flowers, trees and showers, one soft breeze that is all. All hours, confusing then our skin, which can't tell where you end or I begin. There, in that time of dew and dust, I'll be, after our Decembers, with you again.

Nazar? What a gorgeous love poem! But, I didn't see anything in there about dolls with dead eyes or pale girls with black hair covering, their faces, or even snakes with human skin. I feel like if you're going for the full Shakespearean sonnet, you have to include at least one of those things. Nightfail, I'm looking forward to reading more of your work. Keep writing. Now let's have a look at horoscopes. Be careful with curiosity, Aries, open no doors, lest you find. a shadow that is not yours. The stars tell you, Taurus, and I quote, we hope you like spiders in your throat. People are mean, Gemini, but don't get annoyed. Block out the haters and stare into the void.

Oh, cancer, we can't tell you exactly what's in store, but it involves a chase and a scream and a light touch of gore. Don't look in the attic, Leo, the stars say you ought not, unless you want to see the beast that will get you got. The entry for Virgo contains neither letters nor words,

only strange sketches of eviscerated birds. They say Libras always keep a level head, but that bridge out sign you've surely misread. Bad luck, Scorpio, it was in the news across the nation that you finally learned the meaning of defenestration.

Look away, Sagittarius, you do not want to know that behind you is a clown with a knife and a banjo. Capricorn, the aliens invaded. I'll keep it short and sweet. They want to know, are you light? dark meat. Aquarius, looking good, bud. Keep up the good work. Woe be unto thee, Pisces, kneel, and repent, else put on these shoes that are made of cement. This has been horoscopes.

Back to Poetry Week. I've gotten a good number of poems, but, um, not a number of of good poems so far. Oh, okay, this one seems pretty solid. Harrison Kipp writes in with the old hollow log. I don't know all the trees. I know they are majestic and proud, stoic and beautiful. Every tree was forged by the gods, not all the gods, but the ones who like trees. Yet, this old hollow log remembers only its shape, while forgetting its nature, which is to live, and then to die, and then to return to the earth. Still, the old hollow log remains, shunning erosion, denying the soil its nutrition, but carrying on as a landmark in an otherwise lifeless desert. And here, upon this old hollow log, as you struggle against the restraints, your screams are unheard neath the holy chanting of our masses,

just know that our God, not one you've heard of before, a pretty new God, as a matter of fact, who is indifferent to trees, but quite enamored with sacrifice, will welcome your spirit with a cold, incurious embrace, like an ATM welcomes a bank card, and the finality of you will fill the chasm of the old hollow log. Thanks, Harrison. I don't know if this is directed toward a specific person, or... You know what?

Art is art. If it had a deeper meaning, we would have called it like thinkies, or thoughtnesses is, or mind fertilizer. It's called art because that's all it is. No need to explore deeper. Now a word from our sponsor. To your left, nothing. Ahead, nothing. Behind, Nothing. Right below, above, a perfect void. It is not even black, this nothing, nor white. There are no smells, no shapes, no sounds, only the quiet of you. You are the only mass, the only matter, the only gravity in all of creation. You contain multitudes, and yet, you are but a singularity.

Einstein Brothers Bagels. Try our new locks and scallion smear. It is already in you. It is you. Listeners, I'm getting an alarming amount of emails from you about a woman in a light blue suit going around eating people. And while, yes, fair, that is somewhat news. Worthy. This is also Poetry Week. So maybe put your energy into the task at hand.

Poems are more important than a woman picking up some yokel standing next to you at the DMV and unhinging her jaw like a red-tailed boa and sliding that squirming citizen into her slimy gullet as her neck throbs with her still living dinner. And yes, I know how she gets this blank stale. as she's digesting and how she looks all warped like a melted plastic soda bottle? It's creepy. Blah, blah, blah. Sure. Yes.

Totally. But, like I said before, that woman is our town founder, Tabitha Littlefield. She rose from a chrysalis a few months ago, and it's such an honor to have her around again. She's only feeding on us because she's hungry. She's been dead for nearly 300 years. Cut her some slack. Actually, you know what would be nice? If you wrote poems about her.

I think she'd really like that. Poetry Week is an ancient tradition that goes back to Tabithus days when the first town council met. They would pile soft meat high atop their heads and then recite original poems. These poems were improvised and really mean, kind of like rat battles, but with slightly different hats. Speaking of poems, I just received this poem from the Department of Commerce. It's called press release. Urgent notice. The city of Nightvale is out of food and supplies, because there apparently is no way in or out of Nightvale. at least not predictably so.

Sometimes people come here. Other times people leave here. But that's usually an accident. We're not scientists. But we are the Department of Commerce for the City of Nightvale, and we strongly believe that commerce needs goods to actually, you know, work. So if anyone has any ideas on how to get imports or exports, that'd be great. In the meantime, let's all be cool.

at the Ralph's. Okay? Love, Melanie, and Rich. Well, that's not a very traditional poem. I like the part at the end where we learned the narrator's first names. That was a twist. Also, they mentioned scientists, which is highly erotic. But the whole piece is lacking structure. I couldn't find the rhythm in my performance, and I don't think there's a single rhyme in it. Maybe it's about, the internal rhymes. A lot of modern poets love to hide their rhymes. Um, let's see, way rhymes with okay. Yeah. Yeah, I like it now that I've given it some space. It's doing something unique, really subverting our expectations about poetry and capitalism. Good job, Department of Commerce.

Listeners, many of you have been hand-delivering your poems up to the station because you want them read on the air before they're fed to the librarians. That's great. I love that. But I'm getting word that our town founder, Tabitha Littlefield, has been not only eating people, but also their poems. While I want the best for our town founder, seems like a lovely woman. What with that blue suit and glimmering chrysalis ooze still covering her whole? self, we certainly need far more poems than we have been delivered. Let's do this. Hang on to your original poems. Keep writing. And if you want to send some to me to read on the air, you can just

email them. I'm Cecil Gershwin Pamler at gmail.com. Not Palmer, Pamler. I intentionally misspelled my own email address so that random people wouldn't send me dirty photos or ransom notes or family recipes or pictures of kittens or whatever deranged things sickos like to email. But y'all are my trusted listeners. You won't send me anything terrible like recipes or cat photos. You'll only send me poems for Poetry Week. And remember, Poetry Week is only this week. After that, no more writing poems. It's not technically illegal, but it's not technically illegal, but it is unethical. Oh, look, we've already got our first emailed poem. This one is from my niece, Janice, co-written by my sister Abby. It's called There's No Water in the Pool. We used to go swimming,

three seasons out of the year. The pool is still there to remind us of warmth, of floating, of life before it ever began, of better times, of family times. The pool is empty, yet it is still a pool to us. We trust the concrete will never leave us, but without the water, it's only a shell of itself. Gosh, that's such a haunting poem, you two. I'm very moved, and I'm very moved, and I hope you get the pool filled up soon. Oh, I see Abby included a little note about the meaning of the poem. She says,

Cecil, I don't know how to talk to Steve about his new job. He seems happy, but it's hard to tell. He's so busy. I feel like he's not really himself these days. Something about that new company, that Labyrinth, has taken away all that made him a great husband and father, and now there's just a Steve-shaped, man in our house.

Abby goes on. Anyway, writing the poem was truly cathartic. Feel free to read it on the air, but please don't read anything else from this email. I want to talk to Steve myself. Um, thanks for writing in, Abby and Janice. And good luck with the pool. Listeners, best to just stay inside right now. I'm getting reports that our town founder is out of control.

This used to be a simple case of a woman in a business suit covered in primordial goo strolling about the city randomly eating people. But now this is a rampage. She's still strolling about eating people. What was so many of you in the streets writing and reading poems? She can't seem to stop herself. In fact, I've been told that she's growing. When she emerged from the chrysalis a few months back, people said she was maybe a little under five and a half feet tall, but after all the feasting, she's got to be 5'4, 5'5 by now?

So, head inside, Nightvale. I know you'd love to be outside enjoying the crisp spring sunshine, but you're safer if you just hear about the weather. Don't get caught up in the past Girls can heal, they can last Don't get caught up in the past Scars can heal, they can last Don't get caught up in the past Just a number

on your roster Guys can heal, they can last, don't get caught up in the past No one's safe from From their face Guys can heal, they can last, don't get caught up in the past Just a number On your roster

We're going to be on back and last. Don't get caught up in the past. There's no one's straight from. From it, babe. Oh, that's also. And spit you. Do it yourself with a little bit. Bore of Vyarai.

Embarked and profited. Embarked and relax. Ciroat. Bookine. Oh, that also. And profited. Via Raille. The voice that we love.

Nightville's founder walked across town, zigzagging down every major road, devouring, maybe one out of every 50 or so people? I've heard reports that she's eaten more than 2,000 poems today alone. And that's a big blow. We're going to all have to work harder, not smarter, the rest of the week, to meet the librarian's quota. When she arrived at the center of town, the dog park's tall gates opened for her. Oh, geez, just like 11 years ago. Why can't we handle poetry weeks around here?

She headed straight toward the obelisk at the center of the park. She licked the poem by former Knightville mayor, Danielle Dubois, that is engraved on the pedestal. Tabitha then wrapped both her arms around the tower. More arms emerged from her smart-looking blue blazer. Then more arms. All in all, something like 17 arms came out of that woman, and she skittered to the top. At this point, a long, forked tongue came out of her mouth,

and she began hissing. A crowd gathered, awaiting a dramatic event. Would our town founder transform into a giant winged beast? Would the earth begin to quake? Would the air around us all become flames? Would the sky turn blood red and the clouds spin like lions circling their prey? Would poetry week get cancelled again? Nope.

The gates just stayed open. And Tabitha's still up there, looking every bit like a woman in a blue business suit who just saw. so happens to have a forked tongue and a surplus of arms. It was anti-climactic? So the crowd began to disperse. Eh, I've seen weirder, said James Botros, owner of the Witch and Warlock Emporium off Route 800,

in that building that was clearly once a bed-bath and beyond. This one time my friend Rakeem, he was drinking a glass of milk, Boutreus continued, and I said something really funny, like once a generation-level joke here. And Rakeem laughed so hard that milk came out of his nose, and he died. Everyone standing near James Boutros immediately went quiet and stared at him. He continued. Oh, I should clarify, there was an 80-year difference between when the milk came out of Rakeem's nose and when he died.

Rakeem died peacefully at age 99, surrounded by four children and 13 grandchildren and even a few of the great-grandchildren. But the weird part, Baudros said, is that Rakeem was a tortoise. Male tortoises don't stay with their young. How did he know who those kids were? Flipping bonkers, I tell you, Boutros concluded. Then he waved a crooked stick in the air, a murmuration of starlings' swirming. about him and he disappeared.

We've come a long way as a town, Nightvale. Eleven years ago, it was taboo to even look toward the dog park, let alone directly inside it. But nowadays, it's less of a big deal. I'm proud of how we've grown. But also, I'm out of paper towels and cereal, and I'm not really. sure the Ralph's is ever going to restock. So I guess if it's not one bother, it's another. Well, Night Vale. Who knows how long we're safe from the town founder or what she wants, but at least she's stationary for now. Stay tuned next for the many poems you will write.

And as always, good night, Night Vale. Good night. Welcome to Nightvale as a production of Nightvale Presents. It is written by Joseph Fink, Jeffrey Criner, and Bree Williams, and produced by Dysperition. The voice of Nightvale is Cecil Baldwin. Original music by Dysperition. All of it can be found at dispirition.bancamp.com. This episode's weather was Fixits and Favors by Luggage.

Find out more at the link in our show notes. comments, questions, email us at info at welcome to nightvale.com or follow us on blue sky at night veil radio or on Instagram, Tumblr, and TikTok at Nightvale Official. Or practice saying, Popper, no! In that accent, before the reference gets out of date. But mainly check out Welcome to Nightvale.com,

where we have a twice monthly mailing list that is the best way to keep up to date directly from us to you. Today's proverb, you have two wolves inside you, Dave and Jill. They're both film buffs. Jill loves sports, and Dave has to travel a lot because of work. Are you squeamish about horror movies but kind of want to know what happens? Or are you a horror lover who likes thoughtful conversation about your favorite genre? Join me, Jeffrey Kramer, and my friend from Welcome to Nightville, Cecil Baldwin,

for our weekly podcast, Random Number Generator Horror Podcast Number 9, where we watch and discuss horror movies in a random order. Find, here's the short version, Random Horror Nine, wherever you get your podcasts. Boo.