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 a poem of their own that's been published in the magazine.

Today my guest is Evie Shockley, the author of six poetry collections, and the

Zora Neal Hurston, Distinguished Professor of English at Rutgers University. Her honors include the

2023 Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, a Land and Literary Award,

the Stephen Henderson Award, and twice, the Hurston Wright Legacy Award

and Poetry.

Evie, welcome.

Thank you so much for joining us.

It's my pleasure.

Thanks, Kevin.

So the first poem you've selected to read is Hattie McDaniel arrives at the Coconut

Cove by Rita Dove.

What drew you to this particular poem while you were looking through our archive?

Wow.

Many things, I mean, the first of which is just that I'm a huge fan of Rita Doves and have been for a long time.

I always loved her work, but there's like a personal connection now because my sister and her family live in Akron, where she grew up.

And so I think I think of her as a kind of patron saint of my nieces.

But seriously, the poem itself is just one that I have loved since the first time I saw it and heard her read it.

It's got, I think, some of the classic Rita Dove characteristics, this elegance and poise and dash.

...