Poetry Isn't Dead Podcast Open
Description
Vocal Characteristics
Language
EnglishVoice Age
Young Adult (18-35)Accents
North American (General)Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
Hello and welcome to poetry isn't Dead. A podcast featuring discussions with and about modern poets about their favorite poems, processes and inspirations. I'm your host, Jordan Moldenhauer, and I'll be using my experience as a young poet to interview some of the academics, writers and readers of poetry who helped keep the genre alive. Today we'll be taking a dive into post break up poetry. I'll be interviewing a fellow poet and my best friend, Amanda Julia Scott, about one of her favorite poems, The Nails by W. S. Merwin and how it inspired her poem The Seasons. I'm so excited to have my best friend joining me with all the anxieties that can surround doing anything for the first time, but especially in circumstances like the coronavirus, which do some wrenches into my original plans because of the coronavirus, By the way, I'm recording in my home in the San Francisco Bay area, and Amanda is recording all the way from Washington, D. C. But I guess all we can do in life is move forward with what we have, and this is what we have just to give you some context for the nails. This poem was originally published in The Paris Review in 1961. It also appeared in More Wins Collection. The moving Target in 1963. It's a poem about love and heartbreak, but in a very Merwin like fashion asks more questions than it answers. The feelings around breakups are murky and multi leveled, and Merwin brings up some of these levels without telling you which ones he decides to land on. So here is Amanda, Julia Scott, Reading the Nails by W. S. Merwin.