The New Yorker
130 episodes listed below
Poets reading poets, straight from the New Yorker archive.
Kevin Young, poetry editor of The New Yorker, invites a poet to choose a poem from the magazine's archive, read it aloud and talk it through. Then the guest reads a poem of their own that the magazine has published.
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The New Yorker: Poetry is built around a simple exchange. Kevin Young, poetry editor of The New Yorker magazine, invites a poet to choose a poem from the magazine's archive, read it and discuss it. Then the guest reads one of their own poems that has appeared in the magazine. That is the whole frame. What fills it is close reading at a patient pace. In the Maya C. Popa episode, Artless by Brenda Shaughnessy is praised for being funny and sonically rich while still making a lyric argument about the heart. That is a rare combination, and the episode treats it as one. Popa then reads her own The World Was All Before Them, whose title owes a debt to Milton, and the talk turns to Eden, choice, and the risk of inventing the person one loves. The Adrian Matejka episode starts from C.D. Wright and moves to his own poem Almost Home, in which Bob Kaufman and Indianapolis share the frame. That leads to a question of form: why write one long stanza, and what changes when tercets or couplets open space between the words? These episodes reward attention to that kind of detail. In the April Bernard episode, John Ashbery's resistance to paraphrase becomes the point, and difficulty is cast as a source of pleasure. Bernard's own poem leads somewhere stranger, into liner notes for operas that were made up. The Jericho Brown episode pairs Elizabeth Alexander's When with his own poem Colosseum and floats the idea that every poem is a love poem. It also explains why the word gladiator survived revision. The Rae Armantrout episode reads Dorothea Lasky's Mother as a riddle and her own poem Finally as a story half erased by its own negatives, with humor running through the latter. A 2025 episode breaks the usual pattern. In it, Young and Deborah Garrison, an editor at Knopf, discuss the magazine's centenary poetry anthology, spanning 1925 to 2025, passing through Langston Hughes, W.S. Merwin, Nikki Giovanni, Louise Bogan and Ada Limon. The guests who appear in that centenary year also appear in the anthology. Across the run of titles, the reach is wide: Carolyn Forché reading Mahmoud Darwish, Erika Meitner reading Philip Levine, Henri Cole reading Louise Glück, and Elizabeth Bishop chosen more than once. Grief and love both pass through the room. Neither is handled with fanfare. The praise is precise, and the listener is trusted to keep up.
Made for: Suits a listener who enjoys hearing poems read aloud and then examined line by line, and who is happy to stay with a difficult poem rather than have it explained away.
What sets it apart: A guest is anchored to one magazine's archive: the guest picks a poem The New Yorker once printed, then reads one of their own from its pages. The result plays like a running conversation between poets across the magazine's history.
Readings and conversation with The New Yorker's poetry editor, Kevin Young.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · October 2026
Poets read New Yorker archive poems alongside their own, and Kevin Young keeps the conversation fixed on craft choices like stanza shape and word choice.
A poet goes into The New Yorker's archive, comes back with someone else's poem, reads it aloud, then reads one of their own from the magazine's pages.
A poet picks someone else's poem from the New Yorker archive, then reads their own as the encore.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A close, admiring conversation about Brenda Shaughnessy's "Artless" and the pressure poetry puts on private feeling.
Maya C. Popa's visit to The New Yorker: Poetry begins with Brenda Shaughnessy's "Artless," a poem she admires for its sound, humor, and serious lyric force.
A reflective C.D. Wright reading becomes a tender argument for archives, rereading, and poems still waiting to arrive.
Adrian Matejka's conversation with Kevin Young treats C.D. Wright's "Against the Encroaching Greys" less as a sealed artifact than as a living pressure on the present.
April Bernard makes Ashbery's difficulty feel emotionally legible without sanding down its strangeness.
April Bernard and Kevin Young approach John Ashbery's "A Worldly Country" through the strange pleasure of a poem that resists paraphrase while seeming clear from the inside.
Jericho Brown reads Elizabeth Alexander's "When" as love poem, party poem, elegy, and argument for getting language right.
Jericho Brown joins Kevin Young for a generous reading of Elizabeth Alexander's "When," a poem he remembers as his first real encounter with a New Yorker poem.
A thoughtful centenary conversation about poetry, memory, and the editorial choices behind a century-spanning anthology.
Kevin Young and Deborah Garrison use the New Yorker's centenary anthology, A Century of Poetry in The New Yorker, 1925 to 2025, as a way to think about poetry as memory: the old yellow 1969 paperback that first drew them in, the new book's almost thousand-page heft, and the…
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…
A grave, attentive poetry conversation about witness, silence, and the dead becoming personal.
Valzhyna Mort's New Yorker Poetry conversation treats Victoria Amelina's work as an act of witness, not simply a poem to be admired. The richest passage stays with a cemetery line that at first sounds ordinary, then sharpens: this is a fresh cemetery, not a ritual visit to…
Classic books, explored where they were written and set.
Maya C.
Adrian Matejka chooses C.D.
April Bernard chooses Ashbery because he makes her work.
Patricia Lockwood discusses and reads Elizabeth Bishop's poem 'In the Waiting Room' on the New Yorker Poetry Podcast, exploring its qualities of accuracy, spontaneity, and mystery.
Poet Traci Brimhall discusses and reads Thomas Lux's poem 'Refrigerator, 1957' from the New Yorker archive, exploring the concept of 'refrigerator poems' and her personal connection to poetry.
Henri Cole discusses and reads Louise Glück's poem 'Vita Nova' from the New Yorker archive, exploring its blend of accessibility and complexity while connecting it to his own poetic practice.
Poet Bruce Smith discusses and reads Mary Ruefle's poem 'Open Letter to My Ancestors' from the New Yorker archive, exploring its themes of domestic mysticism and temporal dislocation.
Poet Garrett Hongo discusses his selection of Charles Wright's poem 'Tang Notebook' from the New Yorker archive, reflecting on Wright's influence as his teacher and their shared appreciation for Tang Dynasty Chinese poetry.
Poet Sasha Debevec-McKenney discusses and reads Gabrielle Calvocoressi's poem 'Hammond B.3, Organ Cistern' from the New Yorker archive, exploring its personal significance and themes.
Kevin Young hosts a poetry podcast where guest Megan Fernandez discusses and reads poems from The New Yorker archive.
Poet Erika Meitner discusses and reads Philip Levine's poem 'What Work Is' on the New Yorker Poetry Podcast, exploring its narrative accessibility and personal significance.
Poetry editor Kevin Young interviews poet David St.
Edward Hirsch discusses and reads Gerald Stern's poem '96 Van Damme' from the New Yorker archive, reflecting on his personal connection to Stern and the poem's impact.
Jericho Brown chooses Elizabeth Alexander's "When." Kevin Young keeps the conversation close to the poem while Brown listens for its music and the grief that sneaks in late.
The New Yorker turns 100.
Poetry editor Kevin Young interviews poet Dobby Gibson about a Diane Seuss poem and his own work.
A simple poem gets thorny fast.
Host Kevin Young interviews poet Jim Moore, who reads and discusses a poem from The New Yorker archive and one of his own.
Poetry editor Kevin Young hosts poet Amber Tamblyn, who reads and discusses a poem from The New Yorker archive and one of her own.
A cemetery changes the whole poem.
Poet Raymond Antrobus discusses a protactile version of Tintern Abbey by John Lee Clark and his own work.
Poetry editor Kevin Young interviews poet Amy Willard about a Charles Wright poem from the New Yorker archive.
Kevin Young introduces a special episode of The Slowdown hosted by Major Jackson, who reads Clint Smith's poem 'Chaos Theory' and reflects on the joy of poetry.
Poet Jose Antonio Rodriguez reads and discusses Naomi Shihab Nye's poem 'World of the Future, We Thirsted' from The New Yorker archive.
Poetry editor Kevin Young interviews U.S.
Kevin Young interviews poet Robin Costa-Lewis about her new book inspired by family photographs from the Great Migration.
Poetry editor Kevin Young interviews poet Ben Perkert, who reads and discusses a poem from the New Yorker archive and one of his own.
Kevin Young hosts poet Kwame Dawes, who reads and discusses Derek Walcott's poem 'The Season of Phantasmal Peace' and shares his own work.
Kevin Young hosts poet Ellen Bass, who reads and discusses a poem from the New Yorker archive and one of her own.
Kevin Young interviews translator Mary Jo Bang about her new translation of Dante's Purgatorio, discussing her approach and inspiration.
Kevin Young interviews poet Shane McRae about his series of poems imagining the life of Jim Limber, a mixed-race child taken in by Jefferson Davis's family.
Poetry editor Kevin Young interviews poet Vijay Shashatri about a Sylvia Plath poem from the New Yorker archive.
Kevin Young, poetry editor of The New Yorker, introduces a poetry feature and discusses it with a guest.
Poet Ariel Francisco reads and discusses a James Wright poem from The New Yorker archive, then reads one of his own poems.
Kevin Young interviews poet Campbell McGrath about a poem from the New Yorker archive and one of his own poems.