Hi, 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 that's been published in the magazine.

Today, these poems are also from a century of poetry in the New Yorker, 1925 to 2025, the anthology

that's just now out.

Today, my guest is Edward Hirsch, whose honors include a MacArthur Fellowship, a National

Book Critic Circle Award, the Pablo Neruda Presidential Medal of Honor, and a National

Jewish Book Award. Eddie, welcome. Thanks so much for joining me. It's nice to be here, and the National Jewish Book Award.

Eddie, welcome. Thanks so much for joining me. It's nice to be here, Kevin. Thanks for having me.

It's great to see you. The first poem you've selected to read is 96 Van Dam by Gerald Stern.

What was it about this poem that caught your intention in the archive and the anthology?

First of all, Jerry Stern was like an older brother to me. He hired me for my first job at Poets in the archive and the anthology. First of all, Jerry Stern was like an older brother to me.

He hired me for my first job at Poets in the Schools in Pennsylvania in 1975.

He had a fifth floor walk up in New York and I visited him on Van Damned Street.

So when I saw the poem in 1977, I was 27 years old.

I just never seen a poem like this also had known a poet who had written such a poem.

So that just leapt out at me in 77, and it leapt out at me again in the anthology.

Wonderful.

Let's hear it.

This is 96 Van Dam by Gerald Stern.

96 Van Dam.

...