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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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?
Nick Sturm on Alice Notley ("At Night the States")
Close Readings
2 hours 2 minutes
5 months ago
Nick Sturm on Alice Notley ("At Night the States")
After a long break, the podcast returns with an episode on the late Alice Notley [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/alice-notley], who passed away on May 19, 2025. Nick Sturm [https://www.nicksturm.com/] joins us to discuss Notley's elegy for her husband Ted Berrigan, "At Night the States [https://poets.org/poem/night-states]."
Nick Sturm teaches at Georgia State University in Atlanta. His book on small press print culture, publishing communities, and the New York School is forthcoming from Columbia University Press. He is also the editor of Early Works [https://fonografeditions.com/catalog/f0no24-alice-notley-early-works-print-book/] by Alice Notley (Fonograf Editions) and co-editor, with Alice Notley, Anselm Berrigan, and Edmund Berrigan, of Get the Money!: Collected Prose, 1961-1983 [https://citylights.com/general-poetry/get-the-money/] by Ted Berrigan (City Lights). His articles and editorial projects have been published at Poetry Foundation, Jacket2, Paideuma, College Literature, Chicago Review, ASAP/J, Women's Studies, Post45, and The Poetry Project Newsletter. You can follow Nick on Bluesky [https://bsky.app/profile/nicksturm.bsky.social].
In the episode, we listen (twice) to a recording of Notley reading the poem in Buffalo, in 1987. That recording, along with many others, can be found on Notley's page in the marvelous PennSound [https://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Notley.php] digital archive.
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Close Readings
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?
