Rae Armantrout Reads Dorothea Lasky

November 27, 2024·29 min·2 clips

Young and Armantrout arrive at the central paradox of Lasky's poem: the mother is found only when the speaker stops searching and becomes herself.

Simple language holds the difficulty. Rae Armantrout chooses Dorothea Lasky's "Mother" because the poem's plain words keep turning into a riddle each time she rereads it. Kevin Young gives that puzzle room, then keeps bringing her back to the line: the rhythm, the address, the images, the way the poem keeps moving. That motion matters. With no punctuation to stop it, Armantrout hears the poem rolling forward and pulling the reader through. Breath starts to feel like pressure. Young points to the strange mix of breath and breathlessness, as if the poem is counting time while also slipping out of it. The images stay sharp. Roses, alligators, vines, lead, and noxious animals make the garden feel charged without turning it into a neat description. Armantrout likes that the poem puts the listener inside the garden instead of explaining what it means. The address gets stranger and sadder. When Young asks whether it might be a love poem, Armantrout hears longing for the mother and for motherhood itself. That opens the poem out. One mother becomes part of a line of mothers, maybe reaching back toward Eve or Lucy. The conversation stays close and attentive. By the end, simplicity feels unstable, almost ceremonial, and full of inherited grief.

As heard by us

A close, intimate conversation about "Mother," grief, breath, and how simple language gathers force.

Rae Armantrout's visit to The New Yorker: Poetry stays with Dorothea Lasky's "Mother" until its plain language starts to feel strange. Kevin Young draws out the poem's simplicity, and Armantrout answers by treating it as a riddle: a speaker searching for the mother, a rose…

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

For when you want a poem read slowly, then worried over line by line.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from The New Yorker: Poetry