The New Yorker: Poetry
WNYC Studios and The New YorkerThe New Yorker: Poetry
Readings and conversation with The New Yorker's poetry editor, Kevin Young.
© Condé Nast. All rights reserved.
Readings and conversation with The New Yorker's poetry editor, Kevin Young.
© Condé Nast. All rights reserved.
Donika Kelly joins Kevin Young to read “One Hundred White-Sided Dolphins on a Summer Day,” by Mary Oliver, and her own poem “Sixteen Center.”
The poet joins Kevin Young to read and discuss “Twilight,” by Henri Cole, and his own poem “French Novel.”
The poet joins Kevin Young to read and discuss “Learning to Read,” by Franz Wright, and her own poem “What’s Poetry Like?”
The poet joins Kevin Young to read and discuss “Hattie McDaniel Arrives at the Coconut Grove,” by Rita Dove, and her own poem “the blessings.”
Dorothea Lasky Reads Louise Bogan
Diane Mehta Reads Eavan Boland
Adrienne Su Reads Maxine Kumin
David Baker Reads Stanley Plumly
Kate Baer joins Kevin Young to read “The Morning After,” by Ellen Bass, and her own poem “Mixup.” Baer is the New York Times bestselling author of three poetry collections, including, most recently “And Yet.”
Tributaries: A Conversation with Robin Coste Lewis
Sandra Cisneros Reads José Antonio Rodríguez
Diane Seuss Reads Jane Huffman
Saeed Jones joins Kevin Young to read “The Wind Blows Through the Doors of My Heart,” by Deborah Digges, and his own poem “A Spell to Banish Grief.” Jones’s work has received the Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction, the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award for Poetry, and a Stonewall Book Award.
Eileen Myles Reads Joy Harjo
Christian Wiman Reads Patrizia Cavalli
Amanda Gorman joins Kevin Young to read “Declaration,” by Tracy K. Smith, and her own poem “Ship’s Manifest.” Gorman served as the first-ever National Youth Poet Laureate, received a 2020 Poets & Writers Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award, and, in 2021, became the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history.
Aria Aber joins Kevin Young to read “Half Light,” by Frank Bidart, and her own poem “Dirt and Light.” Aber is a Whiting Award recipient, a current Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, and the author of “Hard Damage,” which won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry.
Forrest Gander joins Kevin Young to read “Privacy,” by Ada Limón, and his own poem “Post-Fire Forest.” Gander is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the winner of a Pulitzer Prize for his collection “Be With.”
“To Claim What Has Tried to Claim Me”: A Roundtable on Asian-American Poetics
Toi Derricotte Reads Tracy K. Smith
Margaret Atwood Reads Saeed Jones
Arthur Sze joins Kevin Young to read “The Problem of Describing Trees,” by Robert Hass, and his own poem “Vectors.” Sze has received the Landon Literary Award, the Jackson Poetry Prize and, in 2019, the National Book Award in Poetry.
Joy Harjo Reads Sandra Cisneros
Radical Imagination: Tracy K. Smith, Marilyn Nelson, and Terrance Hayes on Poetry in Our Times
Clarence Major joins Kevin Young to read “Downpour,” by Billy Collins, and his own poem “Hair.” Major’s recent honors include a PEN Oakland Reginald Lockett Lifetime Achievement Award and a Lifetime Achievement Award in the fine arts from the Congressional Black Caucus foundation.
Elisa Gonzalez joins Kevin Young to read “Gathering Apricots,” by Czeslaw Milosz, translated by Robert Hass, and her own poem “Failed Essay on Privilege.” Gonzalez was recently a Fulbright scholar in Poland, and her work has received support from the Norman Mailer Foundation and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.
Ben Purkert joins Kevin Young to read “Notes on the Reality of the Self,” by Jorie Graham, and his own poem “News.” Purkert began contributing poetry to The New Yorker in 2012, and his début poetry collection, “For the Love of Endings,” was published in 2018.
Kwame Dawes Reads Derek Walcott
Ellen Bass Reads Frank X. Gaspar
Mary Jo Bang Discusses Purgatorio
Shane McCrae Discusses “Jim Limber in Heaven”
Vijay Seshadri Reads Sylvia Plath
Eliza Griswold discusses "First Person"
Ariel Francisco Reads James Wright
Campbell McGrath Reads Czeslaw Milosz
Natasha Trethewey Reads Charles Wright
Safiya Sinclair joins Kevin Young to read and discuss Natalie Diaz's poem "From the Desire Field" and her own poem "Gospel of the Misunderstood." Sinclair is the author of the poetry collection "Cannibal" and the forthcoming memoir "How to Say Babylon."
Rachel Eliza Griffiths joins Kevin Young to discuss "Rain Light" by W.S. Merwin, and her own poem "Heart of Darkness." Griffiths is a poet and artist who has received fellowships from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Cave Canem Foundation, and Yaddo, among others. Her latest book is "Lighting the Shadow."
Peter Balakian joins Kevin Young to read and discuss Theodore Roethke's poem "In a Dark Time" and his own poem "Eggplant." Balakian's latest book is "Ozone Journal," which won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
Craig Morgan Teicher Reads Forrest Gander
Deborah Landau Reads Anne Sexton
Kaveh Akbar Reads Ellen Bryant Voigt
Nick Flynn Reads Zoë Hitzig
Catherine Barnett Reads Wislawa Szymborska
Nicole Sealey joins Kevin Young to read and discuss Ellen Bass' poem "Indigo" and her own poem “A Violence." Sealey is the executive director at the Cave Canem Foundation and the author of the poetry collection "Ordinary Beast."
Tiana Clark Reads Natasha Trethewey
Ada Limón and Natalie Diaz join Kevin Young to discuss their collaborative poetry project, “Envelopes of Air,” a series of eight poems written in correspondence between the two poets, currently featured on newyorker.com.
Marie Howe joins Kevin Young to read and discuss Lucie Brock-Broido's poem "The American Security Against Foreign Enemies Act" and her own poem "The Star Market."
Meena Alexander joins Kevin Young to read and discuss Gerald Stern’s poem “Adonis," and her own poem “Kochi by the Sea.”
Terrance Hayes joins Kevin Young to read and discuss Matthew Dickman's poem "Fire" and his own poem “New York Poem."
David Lehman joins Kevin Young to read and discuss John Ashbery's Poem "Worsening Situation," and his own poem "Stages on Life's Way."
Tracy K. Smith joins Kevin Young to read and discuss Matthew Dickman’s poem “Minimum Wage," and her own poem “Declaration.”
Charles Simic joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss Sharon Olds’ poem “Her Birthday as Ashes in Seawater,” and his own poem “The Infinite.”
Danielle Chapman joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss Zbigniew Herbert's poem "Mr. Cogito Laments the Pettiness of Dreams," and her own poem "The Tavern Parlor."
Stephen Mitchell joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss Richard Wilbur's poem "Two Voices in a Meadow," and his own translation of "The Death of Argos," from Homer’s Odyssey.
Erica Jong joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss John Updike's poem "The City Outside," and her own poem "Dear Keats."
Lia Purpura joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss Carl Phillip's poem "White Dog," and her own poem "First Leaf."
Tom Sleigh joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss Seamus Heaney’s poem “In the Attic” and his own poem “The Fox.”
Andrew Motion joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss Alice Oswald’s poem “Evening Poem” and his own poem “Waders.”
Mary Karr joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss Terrance Hayes’s poem “Ars Poetica with Bacon” and her own poem “Face Down.”
Kevin Young joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss John Berryman’s poem “A Sympathy, A Welcome” and his own poem “Oblivion.”
Brenda Shaughnessy joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss C.D. Wright's poem, “Like a Prisoner of Soft Words,” and her own poem “I Have a Time Machine.”
Parker Henry joins Paul Muldoon to discuss fact checking poetry for The New Yorker.
Jonathan Galassi joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss Frederick Seidel’s “Poem by the Bridge at Ten-Shin,” and his own poem “Lunch Poem for F.S.”
Amit Majmudar joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss Christopher Reid’s “The Confusions,” and his own poem “Invocation.”
Eileen Myles joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss James Schuyler’s “White Boat, Blue Boat,” and her own poem “Dissolution.”
Joyce Carol Oates joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss John Updike's “A Lightened Life,” and her own poem “This Is the Season.”
Billy Collins joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss Eamon Grennan’s “Sea Dog,” and his own poem “Table Talk.”
Jana Prikryl joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss Anne Carson’s “Stanzas, Sexes, Seductions,” and her own poem “Thirty Thousand Islands.”
Nick Laird joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss Elizabeth Bishop's “The Moose,” and his own poem “Feel Free.”
Monica Youn joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss Afaa Michael Weaver's "Passing Through Indian Territory," and her own poem “Goldacre.”
Andrea Cohen joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss Philip Levine's "The Mercy," and her own poem “Major to Minor.”
Stephen Dunn joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss Donald Justice's "There is a gold light in certain old paintings," and his own poem “History.”
J. D. McClatchy joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss James Merrill's "164 East 72nd Street," and his own poem “CaĞaloĞlu.”
Ellen Bass joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss Adam Zagajewski’s “Try to Praise the Mutilated World,” and her own poem “Reincarnation.”
Meghan O'Rourke joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss John Ashbery's "Tapestry,” and her own poem “Apartment Living."
Calvin Trillin joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss Ogden Nash's "Autres Bêtes, Autres Mœurs” and his own poem "Oh, Y2K, Yes Y2K, How Come It Has to End This Way?"
Rosanna Warren joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss Ellen Bryant Voigt’s “Bear,” and her own poem “Man in Stream.”
Sophie Cabot Black joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss Donald Hall’s “The Ship Pounding,” and her own poem “Chemotherapy.”
Matthea Harvey joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss W. S. Merwin’s “Vixen,” and her own poem “Everything Must Go.”
Michael Robbins joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss “Myrtle,” by John Ashbery, and his own poem “Country Music.”
Ada Limón joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss Jennifer L. Knox’s “Pimp My Ride” and her own poem “State Bird.”
Robert Pinsky joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss Elizabeth Bishop’s “At the Fishhouses” and a poem of his own.
Major Jackson joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss Derek Walcott’s “In Italy” and a poem of his own.
Rowan Ricardo Philips joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss Nick Laird’s “Feel Free” and a poem of his own.
Timothy Donnelly joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss Yusef Komunyakaa’s “Fortress” and a poem of his own.
Stephen Burt joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss Liz Waldner’s “Sad Verso of the Sunny _______.”
Maureen McLane joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss Liz Waldner’s “The Sovereignty and the Goodness of God, Together with the Faithfulness of His Promises Displayed.”
James Richardson joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss W. S. Merwin’s “A Single Autumn.”
Rae Armantrout joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss Susan Wheeler’s “The Split.”
Lucie Brock-Broido reads and discusses with host Paul Muldoon a poem by Franz Wright and poem of her own.
Jennifer Michael Hecht reads Lucie Brock-Broido.
Yusef Komunyakaa reads a poem by Marilyn Hacker, as well as one of his own poems, and has a discussion with the New Yorker poetry editor, Paul Muldoon.
Anna McDonald reads a poem by Kathleen Graber, as well as one of her own poems, and has a discussion with the New Yorker poetry editor, Paul Muldoon.
Michael Dickman reads Ellen Bryant Voigt and his own work, and has a discussion with the New Yorker poetry editor, Paul Muldoon.
Sharon Olds reads Rodney Jones and her own work, and has a discussion with the New Yorker poetry editor, Paul Muldoon.
John Ashbery reads Charles Simic and his own work, and has a discussion with the New Yorker poetry editor, Paul Muldoon.
Tracy K. Smith reads a poem by Kevin Young and her own work, and has a discussion with the New Yorker poetry editor, Paul Muldoon.
Philip Levine reads a poem by Ellen Bass and his own work, and has a discussion with the New Yorker poetry editor, Paul Muldoon.
Amy Woolard Reads Charles Wright
May 15, 202437min 45sec
Amy Woolard joins Kevin Young to read “Via Negativa,” by Charles Wright, and her own poem “Late Shift.” Woolard, whose debut poetry collection, “Neck of the Woods,” won the 2018 Alice James Award from Alice James Books. She is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Breadloaf Writers’ Conference, she’s also a civil-rights attorney and the chief program officer for the ACLU of Virginia.