April Bernard Reads John Ashbery

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Julia Alvarez joins Kevin Young to read and discuss “The Schoolroom on the Second Floor of the Knitting Mill,” by Judy Page Heitzman, and her own poem “Mami at Her Vanity.” Alvarez is the author of many novels, nonfiction books, children’s books, and poetry collections, including, most recently, “Visitations.” She has received a Hispanic Heritage Award, the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Achievement in American Literature, and a National Medal of Arts. She’s also the subject of a PBS “American Masters” documentary. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Monica Ferrell joins Kevin Young to discuss “Carrowmore,” by Lucie Brock-Broido, and her own poem “The Fifties.” Ferrell is the author of a novel and three books of poetry, including “You Darling Thing,” a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and the Believer Book Award in Poetry. Her new collection, “The Future,” was published in March. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Maya C. Popa joins Kevin Young to read “Artless,” by Brenda Shaughnessy, and her own poem “The World Was All Before Them.” Popa is the author of “Wound Is the Origin of Wonder” and “American Faith,” the latter of which won the North American Book Prize. Her third collection, “If You Love That Lady,” will be published by W. W. Norton this July. Popa serves as the poetry editor of Publishers Weekly, and teaches in the undergraduate and M.F.A. programs at New York University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Adrian Matejka joins Kevin Young to read “Against the Encroaching Grays,” by C. D. Wright, and his own poem “Almost Home.” Matejka is the author of several poetry collections and the graphic novel “Last on His Feet.” He has been a finalist for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, served as the poet laureate of the state of Indiana from 2018 to 2019, and is editor-in-chief of Poetry magazine. His new collection, “Be Easy: New & Selected Poems,” will be published in March. He lives in Chicago. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

April Bernard joins Kevin Young to read “A Worldly Country,” by John Ashbery, and her own poem “Beagle or Something.” Bernard is the author of two novels and six poetry collections—including “Blackbird Bye Bye,” which won the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets, and “The World Behind the World,” which was published in 2023. She’s a professor of English and creative writing at Skidmore College, in Saratoga Springs, New York.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Patricia Lockwood joins Kevin Young to read “In the Waiting Room,” by Elizabeth Bishop, and her own poem “Love Poem Like We Used to Write It.” Lockwood is the author of the novels “No One Is Talking About This” and “Will There Ever Be Another You,” along with two poetry collections and a memoir. She has won the Thurber Prize for American Humor and the Dylan Thomas Prize, and she’s a contributing editor at the London Review of Books. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Traci Brimhall joins Kevin Young to read “Refrigerator, 1957,” by Thomas Lux, and her own poem “Love Poem Without a Drop of Hyperbole in It.” Brimhall is the author of five poetry collections, including “Love Prodigal” and “Our Lady of the Ruins,” which won the Barnard Women Poets Prize. She has also received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Park Service—and she is the poet laureate of Kansas and the 2025 Poet-in-Residence at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices