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From James Merrill’s library, his little penciled check mark above the poem.

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

Today is James Merrill’s birthday—he would have turned 99—and somehow I get to spend it back in his old home.

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

This is quite significant in many ways: the overt thuggery, Trump’s barely suppressed fury at being contradicted by a woman, the governor’s standing up, the total abandonment of the pretense of federalism, the continuing use of trans Americans the way Hitler used Jews.

submitted 20 days ago • 301 comments

“I wish one could press / snowflakes in a book like flowers.” James Schuyler, written from his room in the Payne Whitney Clinic, fifty years ago today.

submitted 28 days ago • 1 comment

Ashbery, from Three Poems: “the magic world really does exist. Its dumbness is the proof of this.”

submitted 52 days ago • 0 comments

“New Year is nearly here / and who, knowing himself, would / endanger his desires / resolving them / in a formula?” Another timely throwback ep while I get the pod back up and running: Eric Lindstrom joined me to talk Schuyler’s “Empathy and New Year.” podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

submitted 73 days ago • 0 comments

“No dread. No bitterness. The end beginning. Today’s / Dusk room aglow / For the last time / With candlelight. / Faces love lit, / Gifts underfoot. / Still to be so poised, so / Receptive. Still to recall, to praise.” James Merrill, on dying and on living.

submitted 79 days ago • 1 comment

Mentally I’m here

submitted 115 days ago • 0 comments

I wrote about a new edition of Emily Dickinson’s letters—and about what letters can and cannot do—for The New Yorker. www.newyorker.com/books/under-...

submitted 204 days ago • 0 comments

Holy shit this episode of the Close Readings has @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social reading Sappho in the original Greek in full performance mode like a direct transmission from antiquity. Chills! Fabulous conversation too. Thank you @kjavadizadeh.bsky.social! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

submitted 297 days ago • 1 comment

What can a poem do in the face of calamity? I talked with Huda Fakhreddine about “Pull Yourself Together,” by the Palestinian poet Hiba Abu Nada. Hiba was killed in her home in the Gaza Strip by an Israeli airstrike on October 20, 2023. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

submitted 304 days ago • 1 comment

Listen to this podcast to remind yourself of the joy of close reading of a text with people who know what they are talking about and love it. Unbelievably high quality ‘content’.

submitted 350 days ago • 2 comments

I had such a fun time talking to the brilliant @kjavadizadeh.bsky.social about Sappho, poetics, sparrows, crushes, spells, and payback.

submitted 353 days ago • 0 comments

I talked with the incomparable Emily Wilson (@emilyrcwilson.bsky.social) about the origins of European lyric poetry, the nature of erotic desire, and Sappho’s “Ode to Aphrodite.” podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

submitted 353 days ago • 2 comments

What is poetry for? What does it do? I talked with Robert Volpicelli about W. H. Auden’s “In Memory of W. B. Yeats,” a great poem, written in a moment of historical crisis, about poetry’s limits. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

submitted 367 days ago • 0 comments

A cfp for the poetry/poetics crowd: send me an abstract (by March 15) for this guaranteed session at next year’s MLA in New Orleans! Details here and below: mla.confex.com/mla/2025/web...

submitted 378 days ago • 0 comments

the lovely folks at Amherst College Press made a flyer for the book series I'm co-editing with @kjavadizadeh.bsky.social & @glavey.bsky.social we shifted the title of the series to the virguled "Re/Verse"-- our email subject lines kept getting messed up email me for more info on how to pitch!

submitted 380 days ago • 0 comments

I’m so happy to announce the book series I'm editing with @glavey.bsky.social & @kjavadizadeh.bsky.social for Amherst College Press. It's called Re:Verse and is dedicated to the poetry collection. Each short book will be about one particular book of poems. Inquiries and pitches very welcome!

submitted 388 days ago • 3 comments

I talked to the wonderful Stephanie Burt about Allan Peterson, poems of science, and what happens to our minds when they meet the world. (Also about…Taylor Swift…and whether songs are poetry……) podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

submitted 416 days ago • 0 comments

How does poetry remind us that part of what it is to be human is to be a thing? What can poetry teach us about death? Paul Fry, who forever changed the way I read this poet, joins the podcast to discuss William Wordsworth’s “A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal.” podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

submitted 423 days ago • 1 comment

I talked with Keegan Cook Finberg about Harryette Mullen’s “Dim Lady,” a sendup of Shakespeare's Sonnnet 130. This was a fascinating conversation—about how loving attention can feel formulaic, and about how Mullen and Shakespeare negotiate those constraints. open.spotify.com/episode/3Wqd...

submitted 429 days ago • 0 comments

I had such a lovely time talking to my friend Eric Lindstrom about James Schuyler, why you maybe shouldn’t make New Year’s resolutions, and Schuyler’s poem “Empathy and New Year.” podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

submitted 436 days ago • 0 comments

I talked with David Hobbs about George Oppen, the tensions in poetry between the “singular” and the “numerous,” and Oppen’s poem “Ballad.” podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

submitted 451 days ago • 0 comments

I talked with Elisa Gabbert about one of those poems whose lines are forever knocking around in my head, Sylvia Plath’s “Lady Lazarus.” podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

submitted 472 days ago • 0 comments

Out of the ash, Elisa and @kjavadizadeh.bsky.social have recorded a scintillating conversation about a scintillating midcentury poet. Grab some peanuts to crunch & let's turn & burn podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

submitted 472 days ago • 0 comments

Two Louise Glück poems down on @kjavadizadeh.bsky.social excellent Close Readings podcast, one more to go. Here's the accompanying substack. "A Foreshortened Journey" is the second one and my favourite so far.

submitted 473 days ago • 0 comments

The pod is back to its usual pace now, with new episodes dropping Monday mornings. Last week’s episode featured the great Hanif Abdurraqib on a poem by Umang Kalra. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

submitted 475 days ago • 0 comments

The last conversation in the cluster on Louise Glück is one I won’t forget. Ellen Bryant Voigt remembers her friend. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

submitted 487 days ago • 0 comments

The podcast has returned this week with a cluster of episodes on the late, great Louise Glück. The first dropped yesterday, with Louise’s former student and friend Elisa Gonzalez talking about “A Village Life.” New eps Weds and Fri—amazing guests and conversations. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

submitted 492 days ago • 2 comments

Inspired by a brilliant insight from @kjavadizadeh.bsky.social's review of Ben Lerner's The Lights, I wrote about some prose poems, old and new, recently published in the UK someflowerssoon.substack.com/p/a-box-that...

submitted 543 days ago • 2 comments

For this week’s issue of The New Yorker, I wrote about Ben Lerner’s return to poetry. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

submitted 549 days ago • 0 comments

After years of being locked on twitter, I unlocked tonight to write the following thread, which I'm copying over here for all you who have rightfully left that place behind.

submitted 559 days ago • 5 comments

Bluesky friends, Paula Krebs's suggestions for whom to write to at WVU. Thank you, Paula.

submitted 580 days ago • 1 comment

this great convo btwn @kjavadizadeh.bsky.social & matthew zapruder on kamran's excellent close readings podcast reminded me of one of my fave tate poems (prob one of everyone's faves!) https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/matthew-zapruder-on-james-tate-quabbin-reservoir/id1657024670?i=1000622119104

submitted 596 days ago • 1 comment

🥛

submitted 618 days ago • 0 comments

Catching up… https://open.substack.com/pub/kamranjavadizadeh/p/catching-up-and-news?r=1uyw01&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post

submitted 618 days ago • 0 comments

I talked with the brilliant Kristin Grogan about Lorine Niedecker, condensed milk, and “Poet’s Work.” Find us here or (most) anywhere you get your podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/close-readings/id1657024670?i=1000619109055

submitted 619 days ago • 1 comment