Close Readings

52
Books #145

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?

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Recent Episodes
  • Lindsay Turner on Alice Notley (Waltzing Matilda: "Dec. 12, 1980")
    Jun 13, 2025 – 01:27:43
  • Joyelle McSweeney on Alice Notley (The Descent of Alette)
    Jun 11, 2025 – 01:40:47
  • Nick Sturm on Alice Notley ("At Night the States")
    Jun 9, 2025 – 02:02:59
  • Huda Fakhreddine on Hiba Abu Nada ("Pull Yourself Together")
    May 13, 2024 – 01:30:30
  • Emily Wilson on Sappho ("Ode to Aphrodite")
    Mar 25, 2024 – 01:27:15
  • Robert Volpicelli on W. H. Auden ("In Memory of W. B. Yeats")
    Mar 11, 2024 – 01:52:26
  • Margaret Ronda on Walt Whitman ("This Compost")
    Feb 26, 2024 – 01:49:36
  • Michelle A. Taylor on Patricia Lockwood ("The Ode on Grecian Urn")
    Feb 19, 2024 – 01:56:45
  • Sylvie Thode on Tim Dlugos ("The Far West")
    Feb 12, 2024 – 01:32:58
  • Marisa Galvez on William IX ("The Song of Nothing")
    Feb 5, 2024 – 01:03:44
  • Stephanie Burt on Allan Peterson ("I thought all life came from the alphabet")
    Jan 22, 2024 – 01:23:01
  • Paul Fry on William Wordsworth ("A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal")
    Jan 15, 2024 – 01:31:17
  • Keegan Cook Finberg on Harryette Mullen ("Dim Lady")
    Jan 8, 2024 – 01:32:35
  • Eric Lindstrom on James Schuyler ("Empathy and New Year")
    Jan 1, 2024 – 02:00:05
  • David B. Hobbs on George Oppen ("Ballad")
    Dec 18, 2023 – 01:57:10
  • Jahan Ramazani on Derek Walcott ("A Far Cry from Africa")
    Dec 11, 2023 – 01:41:42
  • Elisa Gabbert on Sylvia Plath ("Lady Lazarus")
    Nov 27, 2023 – 01:42:46
  • Hanif Abdurraqib on Umang Kalra ("Job Security")
    Nov 20, 2023 – 01:13:10
  • Ellen Bryant Voigt on Louise Glück ("Brooding Likeness")
    Nov 10, 2023 – 01:05:29
  • Langdon Hammer on Louise Glück ("A Foreshortened Journey")
    Nov 8, 2023 – 01:24:52
  • Elisa Gonzalez on Louise Glück ("A Village Life")
    Nov 6, 2023 – 01:43:40
  • Jeff Dolven on Sir Thomas Wyatt ("They Flee from Me")
    Aug 14, 2023 – 01:47:28
  • Matthew Zapruder on James Tate ("Quabbin Reservoir")
    Jul 24, 2023 – 01:35:48
  • Priscilla Gilman on William Cowper ("The Castaway")
    Jul 10, 2023 – 01:26:02
  • Kristin Grogan on Lorine Niedecker ("Poet's Work")
    Jul 3, 2023 – 01:25:23
  • Gillian White on Elizabeth Bishop ("Over 2,000 Illustrations and a Complete Concordance")
    Jun 12, 2023 – 01:45:32
  • Walt Hunter on Gwendolyn Brooks ("kitchenette building")
    Jun 5, 2023 – 01:17:36
  • Evan Kindley on Kenneth Koch ("One Train May Hide Another")
    May 29, 2023 – 01:35:16
  • Johanna Winant on Emily Dickinson ("My Life had stood — a Loaded Gun —")
    May 22, 2023 – 01:26:47
  • Dan Chiasson on William Butler Yeats ("Among School Children")
    May 15, 2023 – 01:31:16
  • Sarah Osment on David Berman ("Governors on Sominex")
    May 8, 2023 – 01:25:41
  • Andrew Epstein on John Ashbery ("Street Musicians")
    May 1, 2023 – 01:28:02
  • Harris Feinsod on William Carlos Williams ("To Elsie")
    Apr 17, 2023 – 01:21:44
  • Virginia Jackson on Phillis Wheatley ("To the Right Honorable William, Earl of Dartmouth")
    Apr 10, 2023 – 01:11:37
  • Willard Spiegelman on Amy Clampitt ("Losing Track of Language")
    Apr 3, 2023 – 01:17:05
  • Oren Izenberg on Allen Grossman ("The Life and Death Kisses")
    Mar 27, 2023 – 01:34:06
  • Maya C. Popa on Gerard Manley Hopkins ("Spring and Fall")
    Mar 20, 2023 – 01:06:03
  • Evie Shockley on Ed Roberson ("Open / Back Up (breadth of field)")
    Mar 13, 2023 – 01:12:31
  • Kimberly Quiogue Andrews on Wallace Stevens ("Man Carrying Thing")
    Mar 6, 2023 – 01:12:23
  • Eric Lindstrom on James Schuyler ("February")
    Feb 27, 2023 – 01:28:01
  • Beci Carver on Thomas Hardy ("The Voice")
    Feb 20, 2023 – 01:05:38
  • Christopher Spaide on Terrance Hayes ("The Golden Shovel")
    Feb 13, 2023 – 01:32:36
  • Sarah Dowling on Liz Howard ("True Value")
    Feb 6, 2023 – 01:10:45
  • Stephanie Burt on Randall Jarrell ("The Player Piano")
    Jan 30, 2023 – 01:16:50
  • Katie Kadue on Andrew Marvell ("The Garden")
    Jan 23, 2023 – 01:05:53
  • Anthony Reed on June Jordan ("In Memoriam: Martin Luther King, Jr.")
    Jan 16, 2023 – 01:00:21
  • Lindsay Turner on Elizabeth Bishop ("The Shampoo")
    Jan 9, 2023 – 59:36
  • Stephen Guy-Bray on George Herbert ("Prayer [I]")
    Jan 2, 2023 – 56:09
  • Langdon Hammer on James Merrill ("Christmas Tree")
    Dec 25, 2022 – 57:39
  • Anahid Nersessian on John Keats ("Ode to Psyche")
    Dec 19, 2022 – 59:48
Recent Reviews
  • yourdailynate
    I sit with it
    Really enjoy this, excited for summer to turn to fall so I can burn through all the back episodes. Would like to share episodes to my Instagram story, I suppose I could do that from the app? Yada yada, thanks a bunch. Mammoth Lakes CA
  • blast3blur4got
    —
    —
  • The Actual Rapper Cam'Ron
    A Kitten in the Wilderness
    a perfect podcast for we [who] can still love the world
  • Poetry podcast listener
    Wonderful material with one squabble
    I very much enjoy the in depth discussions and wonderful selection of guests and poems on this podcast. It is a pleasure to learn from such close and well informed readings. My one note is that I agree with another reviewer that Kamran, who certainly has his own valuable insights to add, does tend to interrupt and talk over guests. This is the only thing that prevents me from coming back to this podcast more often. Otherwise, the content is marvelous!
  • poetryfan13
    So Good
    I love this podcast. For listeners looking to find an approachable way to begin accessing conversations around poetry, this is the perfect program. Its host is insightful and his voice is very sexy. I would love for Kamran to do an episode based on a poem of his own choosing. Poetry fan been waiting for an H.D. episode!
  • reader/writer/listener
    I love this podcast
    This podcast has become my constant companion as I walk; it is insightful and accessible, and features a lovely rapport between the host and his guests.
  • Dr.Vive
    Please tell the host to be quiet
    I want to love this podcast, but I always end up turning off episodes because I cannot stand the way the host interrupts his guests, makes little noises over them while they're speaking, rephrases their points after they've already been capably made, and generally inserts himself into the show's airtime in an unprofessional and perhaps even narcissistic way. I wonder if the host might also need to examine his gender and class politics: I've found he's much more deferential to male guests, especially those who teach at Ivies, than to the female professors to whose episodes I've tried to listen. The premise of this show is perfection, and the discussion definitely has its moments, but the host really needs to learn to hold his tongue and give over the floor.
  • jje2105
    Marvelous.
    I love this podcast!!! Very grateful for it.
  • Goofy Sir 2.0
    Simply brilliant
    An elegant and surprisingly simple idea for a poetry podcast, and executed to perfection. Kamran is the ideal host: knowledgeable about poetics, deferential to his guests, and considerate of his audience. Whether I am familiar with the poem of the week or not, I leave each episode feeling richer and smarter.
  • dylan joseph welch
    Close Readings w/Pleasure
    Great podcast to listen to that keeps poetry close to feelings and words, yet also goes deeper into style/form of poems without getting too critical, deconstructive, and boring. Keep the poems coming!
  • old forge golfer
    Subscribe. Do it now!
    Kamran knows what’s up. This podcast will be my favorite, I’m certain of it. Honored to provide the first review.
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