The New Yorker: Poetry

Carolyn Forché joins Kevin Young to read and discuss “The Owl’s Night,” by Mahmoud Darwish, translated by Jeffrey Sacks, and her own poem “The Museum of Stones.” A poet, translator, editor, and activist, Forché is the author of six poetry collections—including, most recently, “Otherwhere: New and Selected Poems, 1976-2026”—and a memoir, “What You Have Heard Is True.” She is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a recipient of the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry, the Windham-Campbell Prize, and the Academy of American Poets Fellowship for distinguished literary achievement.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mark Wunderlich joins Kevin Young to read and discuss “My Great-Grandmother’s Bible,” by Spencer Reece, and his own poem “The Bats.” Wunderlich is the author of five books of poems, including “The Anchorage,” which received the Lambda Literary Award; “The Earth Avails,” which won the Rilke Prize; and “God of Nothingness,” which was published in 2021. His new book, “MATEY,” is forthcoming from Graywolf Press.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Richard Blanco joins Kevin Young to read and discuss “Questions of Travel,” by Elizabeth Bishop, and his own poem, “My Father in English.” Blanco is the author of two memoirs and four poetry collections, including “How to Love a Country” and “Homeland of My Body.” He is the recipient of several honors, including a National Humanities Medal, a Lambda Literary Award, a Paterson Poetry Prize, and a Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry. He was selected by President Barack Obama as the fifth inaugural poet in United States history, and was named as the first-ever American Academy of Poets education ambassador.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Richard Siken joins Kevin Young to read and discuss “I Catch Sight of the Now,” by Jorie Graham, and his own poem “Piano Lesson.” Siken is a poet and painter whose book “Crush” won the 2004 Yale Series of Younger Poets prize, a Lambda Literary Award, and a Thom Gunn Award. His other books are “War of the Foxes” and “I Do Know Some Things,” which was published last year and won a Thom Gunn Award.


Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Julia Alvarez joins Kevin Young to read and discuss “The Schoolroom on the Second Floor of the Knitting Mill,” by Judy Page Heitzman, and her own poem “Mami at Her Vanity.” Alvarez is the author of many novels, nonfiction books, children’s books, and poetry collections, including, most recently, “Visitations.” She has received a Hispanic Heritage Award, the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Achievement in American Literature, and a National Medal of Arts. She’s also the subject of a PBS “American Masters” documentary.


Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices