Close Readings

One poem. One guest. Each episode, Kamran Javadizadeh, a poetry critic and professor of English, talks to a different leading scholar of poetry about a single short poem that the guest has loved. You'll have a chance to see the poem from the expert's perspective—and also to think about some big questions: How do poems work? What can they make happen? How might they change our lives?

Lindsay Turner on Alice Notley (Waltzing Matilda: "Dec. 12, 1980") image
1.4k
Lindsay Turner on Alice Notley (Waltzing Matilda: "Dec. 12, 1980")
E51 · Close Readings
01:27:43·13 days ago
Joyelle McSweeney on Alice Notley (The Descent of Alette) image
1.3k
Joyelle McSweeney on Alice Notley (The Descent of Alette)
E50 · Close Readings
01:40:47·15 days ago
Nick Sturm on Alice Notley ("At Night the States") image
1.5k
Nick Sturm on Alice Notley ("At Night the States")
E49 · Close Readings
02:02:59·17 days ago
Huda Fakhreddine on Hiba Abu Nada ("Pull Yourself Together") image
4k
Huda Fakhreddine on Hiba Abu Nada ("Pull Yourself Together")
E48 · Close Readings
01:30:30·1 year ago
Emily Wilson on Sappho ("Ode to Aphrodite") image
4.6k
Emily Wilson on Sappho ("Ode to Aphrodite")
E47 · Close Readings
01:27:15·1 year ago
Robert Volpicelli on W. H. Auden ("In Memory of W. B. Yeats") image
2.6k
Robert Volpicelli on W. H. Auden ("In Memory of W. B. Yeats")
E46 · Close Readings
01:52:26·1 year ago
Margaret Ronda on Walt Whitman ("This Compost") image
2.5k
Margaret Ronda on Walt Whitman ("This Compost")
E45 · Close Readings
01:49:36·1 year ago
Michelle A. Taylor on Patricia Lockwood ("The Ode on Grecian Urn") image
2.2k
Michelle A. Taylor on Patricia Lockwood ("The Ode on Grecian Urn")
E44 · Close Readings
01:56:45·1 year ago
Sylvie Thode on Tim Dlugos ("The Far West") image
1.7k
Sylvie Thode on Tim Dlugos ("The Far West")
E43 · Close Readings
01:32:58·1 year ago
Marisa Galvez on William IX ("The Song of Nothing") image
1.6k
Marisa Galvez on William IX ("The Song of Nothing")
E42 · Close Readings
01:03:44·1 year ago