You're listening to the New Yorker Poetry Podcast. I'm Kevin Young, poetry editor of the New Yorker magazine.

On this program, we invite a poet to choose a poem from the New Yorker archive to read and discuss.

Then they read one of their own poems from the magazine. Today, my guest is Diane Meta,

the author of the poetry collection, Forrest with Castanets, and the forthcoming

tiny extravagances, and the recipient of the Peter Heineg Literary Award, as well as grants

and fellowships from the Cafe Royal Cultural Foundation, Chivatella Ranieri, and Yado.

Diane, welcome. Thank you for joining us. Thank you very much. Pleased to be here.

Great to have you. So the first poem you've chosen to read is The Lost Art of Letter Writing by Ivan Boland. What drew you to this particular poem while you're perusing the archives?

Well, first of all, she has a great ear. It's masterfully paced.

And I love the very unwelcoming ratio in the beginning, which makes you not want to keep going.

But if you do, it's very satisfying.

Okay.

Let's listen to the poem.

This is Diane Meta reading The Lost Art of Letter Writing by Van Boland.

The lost art of letter writing. The ratio of daylight to handwriting was the same as lacemaking to eyesight.

The paper was so thin its skinned air. The hand was fire and the page tinder. Everything burned away except the one place they singled out between fingers held over a letter pad they set aside

for the long evenings of their leave takings, always asking after what they kept losing, always

performing, even when a shadow fell across the page, and they knew the

answer was not forthcoming, the same action. First, the leaning down, the pen becoming a staff to

walk fields with as they vanished underfoot into memory.

Then the letting up, the lighter stroke, which brought back Cranesbill and thistle,

a bicycle wheel rusting, an iron circle herding the grass again, and the hedges

...