The New Yorker: Poetry

Meghan O’Rourke joins Kevin Young to read and discuss “Poem to My Litter,” by Max Ritvo, and her own poem “Sectioned.” O’Rourke is the author, most recently, of the New York Times best-seller “The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness,” a finalist for the National Book Award in Nonfiction. Her other books include the best-selling memoir “The Long Goodbye” and three poetry collections, including “Sun in Days,” named a Top Ten Poetry Book of 2017 by the New York Times. She has also edited two anthologies, “The Story of the Body: Poems of Illness & Recovery”—which was released earlier this month—and “A World Out of Reach: Dispatches from Lockdown.” She is a professor of creative writing at Yale University and the editor of The Yale Review.

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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.


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