Elisa New on Poetry in America and Beyond

Conversations with Tyler

Society & Culture, Education

4.8 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 20 June 2018

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Elisa New believes anyone can have fun reading a poem. And that if you really want to have a blast, you shouldn't limit poetry to silent, solitary reading - why not sing, recite, or perform it as has been the case for most of its history?

The Harvard English professor and host of Poetry in America recently sat down with Tyler to discuss poets, poems, and more, including Walt Whitman's city walks, Emily Dickinson's visual art, T.S. Eliot's privilege, Robert Frost's radicalism, Willa Cather's wisdom, poetry's new platforms, the elasticity of English, the payoffs of Puritanism, and what it was like reading poetry with Shaquille O'Neal.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.

Recorded May 8th, 2018

Other ways to connect

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram
Follow Tyler on Twitter
Email us: [email protected]
Subscribe at our newsletter page to have the latest Conversations with Tyler news sent straight to your inbox.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Conversations with Tyler is produced by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University,
0:08.4	bridging the gap between academic ideas and real-world problems.
0:12.5	Learn more at mercatis.org.
0:15.2	And for more conversations, including videos, transcripts, and upcoming dates, visit
0:20.4	ConversationsWithTyler.com.
0:30.0	I'm here today with Alisa Ngu, up in Brookline.
0:33.4	She is a professor of poetry at Harvard University, and now producer, director, host,
0:39.0	and star of the new PBS series, Poetry in America. Alisa, very nice to be with you.
0:44.7	Great to be here, Tyler. Thanks so much.
0:47.2	To get into poetry, let me start with the question of what it is you all argue or disagree about.
0:52.8	So let's start with different interpretations of Emily Dickinson.
0:56.6	So I'm going to give you a few people who've written about Emily Dickinson.
0:59.4	Uh-huh.
0:59.7	And you help us see, like what is contested in the world of Emily Dickinson scholarship,
1:04.0	and what's really its take.
1:05.4	Okay. Okay.
1:06.7	Take Martha Niel Smith.
1:09.0	How would you describe her approach to Dickinson? What does she bring out?
1:12.2	Martha Niel Smith, I had no idea you would be examining me, but I will
1:16.5	do my best. Martha Niel Smith is one of those critics who reminds us that it's really important
1:23.9	to pay attention to the fact that Dickinson never actually published, except in the eccentric
1:31.8	manuscripts we call fascicles. Manuscripts that are collected at Harvard University and at
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Conversations with Tyler, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Conversations with Tyler and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.