Shows
Close ReadingsHuda Fakhreddine on Hiba Abu Nada ("Pull Yourself Together")What can a poem do in the face of calamity? This was an extraordinary conversation. Huda Fakhreddine joins the podcast to discuss "Pull Yourself Together," a poem that Huda has translated into English and that was written by the Palestinian poet, novelist, and educator Hiba Abu Nada. Hiba was killed by an Israeli airstrike in her home in the Gaza Strip on October 20, 2023. She was 32 years old. In the episode, Huda describes watching a clip of Hiba reading the poem. You can find that clip here.Huda Fakhreddine is Associate Professor of Arabic literature at t...
2024-05-131h 30Close ReadingsEmily Wilson on Sappho ("Ode to Aphrodite")This is the kind of conversation I dreamed about having when I began this podcast. Emily Wilson joins Close Readings to talk about Sappho's "Ode to Aphrodite," a poet and poem at the root of the lyric tradition in European poetry. You'll hear Emily read the poem in the Ancient Greek and then again in Anne Carson's English translation. We talk about the nature of erotic desire, what it's like to have a crush, and how a poem can be like a spell. Emily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, where she h...
2024-03-251h 27Close ReadingsRobert Volpicelli on W. H. Auden ("In Memory of W. B. Yeats")"Poetry," according to this episode's poem, "makes nothing happen." But as our guest, Robert Volpicelli, makes clear, that poem, W. H. Auden's "In Memory of W. B. Yeats," offers that statement not as diminishment of poetry but instead as a way of valuing it for the right reasons.Robert Volpicelli is an associate professor of English at Randolph-Macon College and the author of Transatlantic Modernism and the US Lecture Tour (Oxford UP, 2021). That book, which won the Modernist Studies Association's first book prize, will be out in paperback in April 2024. Bob's articles have appeared in journals like...
2024-03-111h 52
Close ReadingsMargaret Ronda on Walt Whitman ("This Compost")How does life grow from death? When we taste a fruit, are we, in some sense, ingesting everything the soil contains? Margaret Ronda joins the podcast to discuss a poem that poses these questions in harrowing ways, Walt Whitman's "This Compost."[A note on the recording: from 01:10:11 - 01:12:59, Margaret briefly loses her internet connection and I awkwardly vamp. Apologies! Rest assured the remainder of the episode goes off without a hitch!]Margaret Ronda is an associate professor of English at UC-Davis, where she specializes in American poetry from the nineteenth century to the present. She i...
2024-02-261h 49
Close ReadingsMichelle A. Taylor on Patricia Lockwood ("The Ode on Grecian Urn")What is a poem worth? What does beauty do to the person who wants it, or to the person who makes it? Michelle A. Taylor joins the pod to talk about Patricia Lockwood's poem "The Ode on a Grecian Urn," a wild and funny and ultimately quite moving poem (which is also, obviously, a riff on Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn").Michelle A. Taylor is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Emory University’s Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry. Michelle is a scholar of 20th century literature, and more specifically, literary modernism. She is currently finishing her first boo...
2024-02-191h 56Close ReadingsSylvie Thode on Tim Dlugos ("The Far West")How might a poem map the passage from life to death? Sylvie Thode joins the podcast to talk about a fascinating poem by Tim Dlugos, "The Far West." Sylvie is a graduate student in English at UC Berkeley, where she works on poetry and poetics, with particular interest in the poetry of the HIV/AIDS crisis. Though that focus roots her in the 20th century, she has written on poetry from a range of time periods. Her writing has appeared in Victorian Poetry, Chicago Review, Cambridge Literary Review, and Jacket2. You can follow her on Twitter.
2024-02-121h 32Close ReadingsMarisa Galvez on William IX ("The Song of Nothing")For the first time in the run of this podcast (though certainly not the last!) today we have a poem in translation. Marisa Galvez joins Close Readings to discuss "The Song of Nothing," a poem by the first attested troubadour, William IX. The poem is something like 900 years old, and Marisa helps us see both its strangeness and the sense in which it feels like it might have been written yesterday. You'll hear Marisa read the poem both in an English translation and in its original language, Old Occitan, where its musicality and verve really come through. T...
2024-02-051h 03Close ReadingsStephanie Burt on Allan Peterson ("I thought all life came from the alphabet")Very few scholars have as much enthusiasm for poetry as Stephanie Burt, and so it was a delight to have her back for this episode. Steph has been in the news of late for offering a (very popular) course at Harvard on Taylor Swift, and we begin this episode by talking in fascinating ways about the long history of the relation between popular music and poetry. And then we move on to this episode's poem, Allan Peterson's marvelous "I thought all life came from the alphabet." Peterson was a new poet to me, and I was totally wo...
2024-01-221h 23Close ReadingsPaul Fry on William Wordsworth ("A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal")Some of the most profound insights I have ever had as a student of poetry occurred in the classroom of Paul Fry, and so this episode really is a dream for me. Paul Fry joins the podcast to talk about William Wordsworth's poem "A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal." Just an eight-line poem, but it opens for us into some big questions: Where does Wordsworth fit into the history of autobiography and poetry? How should we think of his phrase "spots of time"? Who was "Lucy," the girl who seems to be memorialized in this and a h...
2024-01-151h 31Close ReadingsKeegan Cook Finberg on Harryette Mullen ("Dim Lady")What kind of love do we find in comparison? Keegan Cook FInberg joins the podcast to discuss Harryette Mullen's poem "Dim Lady," which is simultaneously a love poem and a (perhaps?) loving tribute to Shakespeare's Sonnet 130 (itself a love poem and parody). Keegan is an assistant professor of English at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She is finishing a book called Poetry in General: Interdisciplinarity and U.S. Public Forms. You can find a sample of the work she's doing in that book in her article in Textual Practice on Frank O'Hara and the Seagram Building. A...
2024-01-081h 32Close ReadingsEric Lindstrom on James Schuyler ("Empathy and New Year")"New Year is nearly here / and who, knowing himself, would / endanger his desires / resolving them / in a formula?" So asks James Schuyler in this episode's poem, "Empathy and New Year." No resolutions for me this year, but instead an indulgence, a gift to myself, and I hope to you: my friend Eric Lindstrom rejoins the podcast to talk once again about Schuyler, poetry, and friendship.Eric Lindstrom is Professor of English at the University of Vermont and the author of two books: Romantic Fiat: Demystification and Enchantment in Lyric Poetry (Palgrave, 2011) and Jane Austen and Other Minds...
2024-01-012h 00Close ReadingsDavid B. Hobbs on George Oppen ("Ballad")Why might a poet set poetry aside for more than two decades and then return to it? What would the return sound like? When, as a young man, George Oppen stopped writing poetry, it was because, in his words, "I couldn't make the art I wanted to make while also pursuing the politics I wanted to pursue." David Hobbs joins the podcast to discuss "Ballad," one of the poems Oppen wrote upon his return to poetry. David B. Hobbs is an assistant professor of English at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, where he is working on h...
2023-12-181h 57Close ReadingsJahan Ramazani on Derek Walcott ("A Far Cry from Africa")How can a poet choose between his language and his idea of home? A postcolonial turn this week, as Jahan Ramazani joins the podcast to talk about Derek Walcott's "A Far Cry from Africa."Jahan Ramazani is University Professor and Edgar F. Professor and the Director of Modern and Global Studies in the Department of English at the University of Virginia. He is the author of several books, most recently Poetry in a Global Age (Chicago, 2020). Please follow, rate, and review the podcast if you like what you hear. Share an episode with a friend. A...
2023-12-111h 41Close ReadingsElisa Gabbert on Sylvia Plath ("Lady Lazarus")What a searching, stimulating conversation this was. Elisa Gabbert joins the podcast to talk about a poem she and I have both long loved, Sylvia Plath's "Lady Lazarus."Elisa is a poet, critic, and essayist—and the author of several books. Her recent titles include Normal Distance (Soft Skull, 2022), The Unreality of Memory (FSG Originals, 2020), and The Word Pretty (Black Ocean, 2018). She has a new book of essays coming out next year: Any Person Is the Only Self (FSG, 2024). Elisa writes the "On Poetry" column for The New York Times, and she regularly reviews new books of po...
2023-11-271h 42Close ReadingsHanif Abdurraqib on Umang Kalra ("Job Security")A conversation I've been wanting to have for a long time: Hanif Abdurraqib joins the podcast to talk about Umang Kalra's poem "Job Security."Hanif is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. He is the author of A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance, A Fortune for Your Disaster, Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to a Tribe Called Quest, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, and The Crown Ain't Worth Much. He has a new book coming out in March, 2024: There's Always This Year: On Basketball and...
2023-11-201h 13Close ReadingsEllen Bryant Voigt on Louise Glück ("Brooding Likeness")The last of three episodes in our cluster on Louise Glück: one of her oldest and dearest friends, the marvelous poet Ellen Bryant Voigt joins the podcast to talk about Louise's poem "Brooding Likeness." Ellen's books of poetry have recently been assembled into a staggering single volume, Collected Poems (Norton, 2023). She is also the author of two books of prose: The Flexible Lyric (Georgia, 1999) and The Art of Syntax (Graywolf, 2009).A couple notes on things that come up in the episode:Ellen discusses Louise's autobiographical note for the Nobel Prize. You can fi...
2023-11-101h 05Close ReadingsLangdon Hammer on Louise Glück ("A Foreshortened Journey")The second episode in our cluster on the great Louise Glück, who won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature, and who passed away on October 13.Lanny Hammer rejoins the podcast to talk about his friend and colleague Louise and her poem "A Foreshortened Journey." Langdon Hammer is Niel Gray, Jr. Professor of English at Yale University, where he studies poetry and its place in the culture. Among his recent publications are James Merrill: Life and Art (Knopf, 2015) and A Whole World: Letters from James Merrill (Knopf, 2021), which he edited with Stephen Yenser. Lanny has also re...
2023-11-081h 24Close ReadingsElisa Gonzalez on Louise Glück ("A Village Life")After a little hiatus, the podcast returns with a cluster of new episodes on the great, late poet Louise Glück, recipient of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature. Louise passed away on October 13. First up we have the brilliant poet and writer Elisa Gonzalez, who knew Louise as both teacher and friend. Elisa has chosen the poem "A Village Life" for our conversation.Elisa's first collection of poems, Grand Tour, was just published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. About the book, Louise Glück wrote, "These poems make me feel as if poems have never bef...
2023-11-061h 43Close ReadingsJeff Dolven on Sir Thomas Wyatt ("They Flee from Me")"Dear heart, how like you this?" There's really nothing better than that, is there? I talked to Jeff Dolven about Sir Thomas Wyatt's gorgeous poem "They Flee from Me." It's one of the hottest poems I know, and after talking to Jeff I know it much better. Jeff Dolven is Professor of English at Princeton University, where he teaches courses in poetry and poetics, especially of the English Renaissance. He is the author of three books of criticism, including, most recently, Senses of Style: Poetry before Interpretation (Chicago, 2018), and two books of poetry: Speculative Music (Sarabande, 2013) and *A...
2023-08-141h 47Close ReadingsMatthew Zapruder on James Tate ("Quabbin Reservoir")How is poetry like skipping stones across the surface of a lake? How might a poem be like an undelivered letter or package? Matthew Zapruder joins the podcast to talk about James Tate's "Quabbin Reservoir," a poem that raises those and other questions—and does so with Tate's gorgeous ear for weird idiom, full of both humor and feeling. (For the backstory on the place this poem is—at least on its surface—about, see this story.)Matthew Zapruder is the author of five books of poems, including, most recently, Father's Day (Copper Canyon, 2019), and two books of pro...
2023-07-241h 35Close ReadingsPriscilla Gilman on William Cowper ("The Castaway")How does suffering separate the person going through it from their friends and loved ones? Priscilla Gilman joins the podcast to talk about a poem that takes on that question in literal terms—it tells the tragic story of a sailor who drowns as his shipmates are forced to sail away—and that sees it, at the same time, as a question we all have to face, William Cowper's "The Castaway."Priscilla Gilman is the author of two books: The Anti-Romantic Child: A Memoir of Unexpected Joy (Harper, 2011) and The Critic's Daughter: A Memoir (Norton, 2023). She's a form...
2023-07-101h 26Close ReadingsKristin Grogan on Lorine Niedecker ("Poet's Work")What kind of work is the work of poetry, and how does it compare with other kinds of labor? We have the perfect pairing of poem and critic to think through that question on this episode: Kristin Grogan joins the podcast to talk about Lorine Niedecker's "Poet's Work."Kristin is assistant professor of English at Rutgers University, where she works on poetry, poetics, modernism, American literature, modernism, gender, and sexuality. She is nearing completion of her first book, Stitch, Unstitch: Poetry, Modernism, and the World of Work. You can find Kristin's essays and articles in such journals...
2023-07-031h 25Close ReadingsGillian White on Elizabeth Bishop ("Over 2,000 Illustrations and a Complete Concordance")What if life were like a book that you could open at will and know in real time? Gillian White joins the podcast to talk about Elizabeth Bishop's fascinating poem "Over 2,000 Illustrations and a Complete Concordance." Gillian is an associate professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Michigan, where she also runs the Poetry and Poetics Workshop. She is the author of Lyric Shame: The "Lyric" Subject of Contemporary American Poetry (Harvard UP, 2014). Her essays have also appeared in The New York Review of Books, the Poetry Foundation website, and London R...
2023-06-121h 45Close ReadingsWalt Hunter on Gwendolyn Brooks ("kitchenette building")What a delight this was, to talk to my friend Walt Hunter about the marvelous Gwendolyn Brooks poem "kitchenette building." Walt is an associate professor and the Chair of the Department of English at Case Western Reserve University. He is the author of two books of criticism: Forms of a World: Contemporary Poetry and the Making of Globalization (Fordham UP, 2019) and The American House Poem, 1945 - 2021 (Oxford UP, forthcoming in 2023). He is also the author of a book of poems, Some Flowers (Mad Hat Press, 2022), and the translator, with Lindsay Turner, of Frédéric Neyrat's Atopias: Man...
2023-06-051h 17Close ReadingsEvan Kindley on Kenneth Koch ("One Train May Hide Another")How should we deal with the fact that we have to read the lines of a poem in order, one after another—or, for that matter, that we have to live our days one after the other? That's some of what comes up in my conversation with Evan Kindley about Kenneth Koch and his funny, didactic, and haunting poem "One Train May Hide Another."Evan is an associate editor at the Chronicle Review. He is the author of two books: Questionnaire (Bloomsbury, 2016) and Poet-Critics and the Administration of Culture (Harvard UP, 2017). With Kara Wittman, he is the co...
2023-05-291h 35Close ReadingsJohanna Winant on Emily Dickinson ("My Life had stood — a Loaded Gun —")I've been waiting for a chance to talk about an Emily Dickinson poem on the podcast, and no one better to do it with than my friend Johanna Winant. She chose "My Life had stood — a Loaded Gun —" for our conversation. (If you're curious, you can find an image of Dickinson's manuscript here.)Johanna is an assistant professor in the Department of English at West Virginia University, where she works on transatlantic modernism, twentieth-century American literature, philosophy and literature, and transhistorical poetry and poetics. She is completing a book manuscript with the working title "Lyric Logic: American Mode...
2023-05-221h 26Close ReadingsDan Chiasson on William Butler Yeats ("Among School Children")"How can we know the dancer from the dance?" You may know the line, even if you don't know the poem it ends. I had the great pleasure of talking with one of the most accomplished poetry critics of our time, Dan Chiasson, about that poem, William Butler Yeats's fascinating "Among School Children."Dan Chiasson was born and raised in the city of Burlington, Vermont, and received a BA in 1993 from Amherst College and a PhD from Harvard University in 2002. He has written regularly for The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books. Chiasson is...
2023-05-151h 31Close ReadingsSarah Osment on David Berman ("Governors on Sominex")I talked with my friend Sarah Osment about "Governors on Sominex," a poem by David Berman. In addition to being a poet, Berman was the frontman and lyricist of the band Silver Jews.Sarah works in the Writing Program at the University of Chicago, where she teaches courses in Media Aesthetics. She has devoted her intellectual energy to more public-facing projects since earning her PhD in English from Brown University in 2016: she is the co-founder of Hyped on Melancholy, an online magazine devoted to smart words about sad songs and the reasons we cleave to them. Sarah's o...
2023-05-081h 25Close ReadingsAndrew Epstein on John Ashbery ("Street Musicians")An episode I've been waiting for from the beginning: Andrew Epstein joins the podcast to talk about John Ashbery, one of the most important poets of the last hundred years, and his beautiful and haunting poem of mid-career, "Street Musicians."Andrew is Professor of English at Florida State University and the author of three books: Beautiful Enemies: Friendship and Postwar American Poetry (Oxford UP, 2009), Attention Equals Life: The Pursuit of the Everyday in Contemporary Poetry and Culture (Oxford UP, 2016), and The Cambridge Introduction to American Poetry since 1945 (Cambridge UP, 2022). He blogs about the poets and artists of...
2023-05-011h 28Close ReadingsHarris Feinsod on William Carlos Williams ("To Elsie")Harris Feinsod joins the podcast to talk about William Carlos Williams, his great book of 1923, Spring and All, and one of its strange and unforgettable poems, "To Elsie."Harris is an associate professor of English and Comparative Literary Studies at Northwestern University. He is the author of The Poetry of the Americas: From Good Neighbors to Countercultures (Oxford UP, 2017) and the co-translator (with Rachel Galvin) of Oliverio Girondo's Decals: Complete Early Poems (Open Letter, 2018). Harris's articles and essays have appeared in such publications as Comparative Literature, American Literary History, English Language Notes, Modernism/modernity, The Baffler, In...
2023-04-171h 21Close ReadingsVirginia Jackson on Phillis Wheatley ("To the Right Honorable William, Earl of Dartmouth")Hard to think of a scholar who's had a more significant influence on poetry studies in the last two decades than Virginia Jackson, and so what a thrill it was for me to welcome her onto the podcast to discuss the legendary Phillis Wheatley and her poem "To the Right Honorable William, Earl of Dartmouth."Virginia Jackson is the UCI Endowed Chair in Rhetoric at University of California, Irvine. She is the author of two monographs, Before Modernism: Inventing American Lyric (Princeton UP, 2023) and Dickinson's Misery: A Theory of Lyric Reading (Princeton UP, 2005), and the co-editor, with...
2023-04-101h 11Close ReadingsWillard Spiegelman on Amy Clampitt ("Losing Track of Language")How does poetry emerge out of an ordinary life? Willard Spiegelman joins the podcast to talk about "Losing Track of Language," a poem by Amy Clampitt, a poet who was, in the words of our guest, one of the great "late bloomers" in American poetry.Willard Spiegelman is the author of Nothing Stays Put: The Life and Poetry of Amy Clampitt (Knopf, 2023). He was for many years the Hughes Professor of English at Southern Methodist University and the editor of the Southwest Review. He is the author of eight books of literary criticism and writes regularly about a...
2023-04-031h 17Close ReadingsOren Izenberg on Allen Grossman ("The Life and Death Kisses")What do poems require of the persons who make them, in order for those persons to be known in them? Oren Izenberg joins the podcast to talk about that question and a strange and wonderful poem by Allen Grossman that takes it on, "The Life and Death Kisses."Oren Izenberg is an Associate Professor of English at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of a monograph, Being Numerous: Poetry and the Ground of Social Life (Princeton UP, 2012). He is currently completing another book, How to Know Everything, about the philosophical significance of poetry’s en...
2023-03-271h 34Close ReadingsMaya C. Popa on Gerard Manley Hopkins ("Spring and Fall")One of those poems that makes you feel like its ending is perfect, inevitable. I talked with Maya C. Popa about Gerard Manley Hopkins's "Spring and Fall." Maya is a poet, critic, scholar, and teacher. She is the author of two full-length collections of poetry: American Faith (Sarabande, 2019) and Wound is the Origin of Wonder (Norton, 2022). She is the poetry reviews editor at Publishers Weekly and teaches creative writing at the Nightingale-Bamford School and NYU. She has a Ph.D. from Goldsmiths, University of London, on the role of wonder in poetry, a topic she writes about i...
2023-03-201h 06Close ReadingsEvie Shockley on Ed Roberson ("Open / Back Up (breadth of field)")What a gift this conversation was. I talked to Evie Shockley about a poem from Ed Roberson's book City Eclogue, "Open / Back Up (breadth of field)."Evie is the Zora Neale Hurston Distinguished Professor of English at Rutgers University. She is the author of five books of poetry, including the just-released suddenly we (Wesleyan UP, 2023). She is also the author of Renegade Poetics: Black Aesthetics and Formal Innovation in African American Poetry (U of Iowa P, 2011). Her essays and articles have appeared in such journals as New Literary History, Los Angeles Review of Books, Jacket2, The Black...
2023-03-131h 12Close ReadingsKimberly Quiogue Andrews on Wallace Stevens ("Man Carrying Thing")"The poem must resist the intelligence / Almost successfully." So begins this episode's poem, "Man Carrying Thing," by the modernist American poet Wallace Stevens. I got to talk about it with the scholar and poet Kimberly Quiogue Andrews.Kim is an assistant professor of English at the University of Ottawa and the author of The Academic Avant-Garde: Poetry and the American University (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023). She's also a poet who has published two collections: A Brief History of Fruit (University of Akron Press, 2020) and BETWEEN (Finishing Line Press, 2018). She's the winner of the Akron Prize for Poetry...
2023-03-061h 12Close ReadingsEric Lindstrom on James Schuyler ("February")"I can't get over / how it all works in together." That's the poet James Schuyler, towards the end of today's poem, "February," a favorite of mine, which I had the great fortune to talk about with an old and beloved friend, Eric Lindstrom.Eric is Professor of English at the University of Vermont and the author of two books: Romantic Fiat: Demystification and Enchantment in Lyric Poetry (Palgrave, 2011) and Jane Austen and Other Minds: Ordinary Language Philosophy in Literary Fiction (Cambridge UP, 2022). He's also the guest editor of two collections of essays: Stanley Cavell and the Event...
2023-02-271h 28Close ReadingsBeci Carver on Thomas Hardy ("The Voice")A haunting, haunted poem for us today: Beci Carver joins the podcast to discuss Thomas Hardy's poem for his late wife, "The Voice."Beci is a lecturer in 20th-century literature at University of Exeter and the author of Granular Modernism (Oxford UP, 2014). Her articles have appeared in journals like Textual Practice, Critical Quarterly, Modernism/modernity, and Essays in Criticism. She is also very close to completing her second monograph, Modernism's Whims, which I await eagerly. You can follow Beci on Twitter.If you're enjoying the podcast, please leave a rating or review—and share an ep...
2023-02-201h 05Close ReadingsChristopher Spaide on Terrance Hayes ("The Golden Shovel")What a thrill it was to talk with Christopher Spaide about one of the great poems of this century, Terrance Hayes's "The Golden Shovel."This is a two-for-one Close Readings experience, since you can't talk about the Hayes poem without also discussing the Gwendolyn Brooks poem that his is "after," "We Real Cool."Christopher Spaide is a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows, where he focuses on poetry, ecopoetics, American literature, and Asian American literature. His academic writing on poetry (as well as music and comics) appears in American Literary History, The Cambridge...
2023-02-131h 32Close ReadingsSarah Dowling on Liz Howard ("True Value")Contemporary poetry finally makes its debut on Close Readings! Sarah Dowling joins the podcast to discuss a thrilling and powerful new poem by Liz Howard, "True Value."Sarah is the author of three poetry collections: Security Posture, Down, and Entering Sappho, which was a finalist for the Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry. Her first scholarly book, Translingual Poetics: Writing Personhood under Settler Colonialism, received an honorable mention for the Lora Romero First Book Prize from the American Studies Association. She's also working on another scholarly book, Figure & Ground. Sarah teaches in Victoria College and the Centre for...
2023-02-061h 10Close ReadingsStephanie Burt on Randall Jarrell ("The Player Piano")Stephanie Burt joins the podcast to talk about Randall Jarrell's breathtaking poem "The Player Piano."Steph is Professor of English at Harvard University, where she works on poetry (particularly of the 20th and 21st centuries), science fiction, literature and geography, contemporary writing, comics and graphic novels, and literature alongside other arts. She is also a poet—her books of poetry include We Are Mermaids, After Callimachus, Advice from the Lights, Belmont, and Parallel Play. Her critical books include Don't Read Poetry, The Poem Is You, Close Calls with Nonsense, and Randall Jarrell and His Age. Steph regularly re...
2023-01-301h 16Close ReadingsKatie Kadue on Andrew Marvell ("The Garden")What a delight it was to talk to the brilliant Katie Kadue about Andrew Marvell's beautiful and perverse poem "The Garden."Katie is the author of Domestic Georgic: Labors of Preservation from Rabelais to Milton (Chicago, 2021). She is currently a Fellow at the International Network for Comparative Humanities at Notre Dame and Princeton. She has published academic essays on Andrew Marvell, Michel de Montaigne, and misogyny and cliché in Renaissance lyric poetry, and her writing has also appeared in venues such as n+1, Gawker, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Chronicle of Higher Education. Her piece on M...
2023-01-231h 05Close ReadingsAnthony Reed on June Jordan ("In Memoriam: Martin Luther King, Jr.")Anthony Reed joins the podcast to discuss June Jordan's marvelous poem "In Memoriam: Martin Luther King, Jr."Anthony is Professor of English and the Norman L. and Roselea J. Goldberg Professor of Fine Arts at Vanderbilt University. He is the author of Freedom Time: The Poetics and Politics of Black Experimental Writing (Johns Hopkins UP, 2014) and Soundworks: Race, Sound, and Poetry in Production (Duke UP, 2021). With Vera Kutzinski, Anthony edited Langston Hughes in Context (Cambridge UP, 2022). During the episode, I make reference to Anthony's article, "The Erotics of Mourning in Recent Experimental Black Poetry." We a...
2023-01-161h 00Close ReadingsLindsay Turner on Elizabeth Bishop ("The Shampoo")Lindsay Turner joins the podcast to talk about what is perhaps my favorite love poem ever, Elizabeth Bishop's "The Shampoo." [FYI: For some reason there's a minor technical issue w/my audio quality for the first 3-4 minutes of the episode—sorry!—but, happily, it resolved quickly and doesn't affect the rest of this lovely conversation.]The ShampooThe still explosions on the rocks,the lichens, growby spreading, gray, concentric shocks.They have arrangedto meet the rings aroun...
2023-01-0959 minClose ReadingsStephen Guy-Bray on George Herbert ("Prayer [I]")Stephen Guy-Bray joins Close Readings to talk about one of the most beautiful sonnets in the English language, George Herbert's "Prayer (I)." Stephen's most recent book is Line Endings in Renaissance Poetry (Anthem, 2022). In the episode we also refer in passing to a recent academic article of his called "Notes on the Couplet in the Sonnet" and to a recent talk he gave on "Aboutness in Shakespeare's Poetry." Follow Stephen on Twitter here.Stephen Guy-Bray is a professor at the University of British Columbia and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He is the author...
2023-01-0256 minClose ReadingsLangdon Hammer on James Merrill ("Christmas Tree")Our own Very Special Christmas Episode: Langdon Hammer joins the podcast to talk about James Merrill's "Christmas Tree."Langdon Hammer is the Niel Gray, Jr. Professor of English at Yale University and the author of James Merrill: Life and Art (Knopf, 2015). With Stephen Yenser, he edited A Whole World: Letters from James Merrill (Knopf, 2021). He is also the author of Hart Crane and Allen Tate: Janus-Faced Modernism (Princeton, 1993) and the editor of Library of America editions of Crane and May Swenson. He is poetry editor at The American Scholar and a contributor to The New York Times...
2022-12-2557 minClose ReadingsAnahid Nersessian on John Keats ("Ode to Psyche")Anahid Nersessian joins Close Readings to talk about her favorite poem, John Keats's "Ode to Psyche." Anahid's most recent book, the extraordinary Keats's Odes: A Lover's Discourse, is now available in a new edition.Anahid is a professor of English at UCLA and the author of two earlier books: Utopia, Limited: Romanticism and Adjustment (Harvard: 2015), and The Calamity Form: On Poetry and Social Life (Chicago: 2020). She has published in a wide variety of academic journals and is a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books. Please rate and subscribe to the podcast if y...
2022-12-1959 minClose ReadingsBrian Glavey on Frank O'Hara ("Having a Coke with You")Brian Glavey joins Close Readings to talk about one of the great love poems of the twentieth century, Frank O'Hara's "Having a Coke with You." Check out Brian's recent article on the poem in PMLA and his first book, The Wallflower Avant-Garde (Oxford UP, 2016). Follow Brian on Twitter here. You can watch and listen to O'Hara read the poem here and find the full episode of the television series from which that clip was excerpted, Richard O. Moore's USA: Poetry, on the PennSound website.Finally please rate and subscribe to the podcast if you like w...
2022-12-1251 minClose ReadingsTeaserNot the first proper episode of the podcast but just me, talking for a few minutes about what I hope the podcast will become. The room a poem makes.
2022-11-2903 min
VU English PodcastLyricization with Kamran JavadizadehWe discuss lyricization, lyric poetry, Emily Dickinson, Robert Lowell, and Claudia Rankine. We reference Eric Hayot's "Against Historicist Fundamentalism" and Kamran's article, "The Atlantic Ocean Breaking on our Heads: Robert Lowell, Claudia Rankine, and the Whiteness of the Lyric Subject."
2020-11-1300 min