Close Readings

"What is more precise than precision? Illusion." I talked with my friend, the scholar Siobhan Phillips , about Marianne Moore's poem " Armor's Undermining Modesty ."  Siobhan Phillips is a professor of English at Dickinson College, where she teaches courses on American literature of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, food studies, and creative writing. She is the author of The Poetics...

"Do I dare / Disturb the universe?" I've been waiting to record this episode for a long time: Megan Quigley , my dear friend and colleague, joins the podcast to talk about T. S. Eliot and " The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock ." Megan Quigley is an associate professor of English at Villanova University, where she is also on the Irish Studies and Gender and Women's Studies faculties. She is the aut...

How is a poem like a session of psychoanalysis? The scholar Daniel Katz joins the podcast to talk about a fascinating poem that poses that question, Jack Spicer's " Psychoanalysis: An Elegy ."  Daniel Katz is Professor of English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick and is the author of several books and articles on modernism, modern and contemporary poetry, and psych...

The third in our series of conversations about the late Alice Notley . Lindsay Turner returns to the podcast to discuss a selection from Waltzing Matilda , " Dec. 12, 1980 ."   A poet, critic, and translator, Lindsay Turner is the author of the poetry collections The Upstate  (University of Chicago Press, 2023) and Songs & Ballads  (Prelude Books, 2018). Her translations from th...

The second in a series of conversations about the poet Alice Notley, who passed away on May 19, 2025. The poet and critic Joyelle McSweeney joins the podcast to talk about selections from Notley's epic The Descent of Alette .  (A brief note on audio quality: we listen to three recordings of Notley reading from her book during this episode. The volume on playback of those recordings seems some...

After a long break, the podcast returns with an episode on the late Alice Notley , who passed away on May 19, 2025. Nick Sturm joins us to discuss Notley's elegy for her husband Ted Berrigan, " At Night the States ."  Nick Sturm teaches at Georgia State University in Atlanta. His book on small press print culture, publishing communities, and the New York School is forthcoming from Columbia Un...

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.&...

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...

"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 Mod...

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 th...

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 Cente...

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 rang...

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 ye...

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 thi...

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...

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...

"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 Linds...

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...

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 rec...

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 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 U...

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 (Georg...

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. Amon...

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 collectio...

"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...