In this week’s episode of the poetry podcast, which concludes the first year of the series, Stephen Burt reads “Sad Verso of the Sunny ____,” by Liz Waldner, which was published in The New Yorker in 2009. The poem—in which the speaker recalls a ritual from childhood—is, Burt says, “about how to remember a time before you saw yourself in time.” It begins:
Veldt? Sounds good to me.
Like melt. Back when you could eat Velveeta
and call it cheese. My grandfather’s macaroni and cheese
featured a whole brick of Velveeta. I liked peeling away
its beautiful silver wrapper, Velveeta Velveeta all over in blue.
The expanses of time in which there was this grandfather
appeared endless when I was in them. Who
could see to the ends of the plains and so see her end
beyond them? Who could think to look?
Burt also reads his own poem “Hermit Crab” (published in the magazine in 2013), which, he says, explores the feeling of being stuck with your body and finding "alternate housing for the ego ... that is sometimes more ornate, sometimes more artificial, and sometimes much more comfortable." You can hear Burt’s reading of the poems, and his discussion with the magazine’s poetry editor, Paul Muldoon, by listening above or by downloading the podcast for free from iTunes. Listen to the latest episodes of all New Yorker podcasts here.
