Holiday Best: Tracy K. Smith; A Ray of Climate Hope; Recognition & Dignity; Radio Rookies 2023
The Brian Lehrer Show
WNYC
4.6 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 26 December 2023
⏱️ 109 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For this long weekend, enjoy some of our recent favorite interviews:
-
Tracy K. Smith, Pulitzer Prize winning poet, former Poet Laureate of the United States from 2017 to 2019, author of To Free the Captives: A Plea for the American Soul (Knopf, 2023), talks about her new book, a manifesto for facing our history and moving forward together.
-
The Fifth National Climate Assessment, a government mandated report on climate change, was released mid-November. Kate Marvel, climate scientist at the environmental nonprofit Project Drawdown and a lead author of the report, breaks down the warnings -- and the climate solutions -- laid out in the assessment.
-
Michèle Lamont, professor of sociology, African and African American Studies at Harvard University, and the author of Seeing Others: How Recognition Works—and How It Can Heal a Divided World (One Signal/Atria, 2023), argues that "recognizing" and dignifying more than material success offers a path out of today's polarization.
-
Carolina Hidalgo, senior producer for WNYC's Radio Rookies, introduces the new class of Radio Rookies while: Christina Adja shares the story she reported about gentrification coming to her neighborhood in the South Bronx; Saldon Tenzin shares her story on her experience of growing up as a first-generation Tibetan and learning to be proud of a home she's never visited; and Fanta Kaba shares her story on how her family found stability in a NYCHA apartment, and how residents are wary as public housing here in the city is changing.
These interviews were lightly edited for time and clarity; the original web versions of the interviews are available through these links:
Tracy K. Smith's Manifesto (Nov. 7)
A Climate Scientist's Optimism (Nov. 28)
Recognition, Dignity and Worth (Sep. 21)
Radio Rookies 2023: Gentrification Comes to The Bronx (Sep. 13)
Radio Rookies 2023: Learning What it Means to be Tibetan (Sep. 14)
Radio Rookies 2023: Changes Coming to Public Housing (Sep. 15)
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:12.7 | It's the Brian Merr show on WNYC. Good morning everyone and happy first day of Kwanza |
| 0:15.8 | or happy boxing day for British listeners. |
| 0:19.0 | My producers and I are extending our holiday weekend |
| 0:21.8 | and we've edited some favorite interviews |
| 0:23.8 | from recent times for this show including a somewhat optimistic take on our |
| 0:28.6 | understanding of climate change for our climate story of the week which we've done on Tuesdays all this year |
| 0:34.3 | also today a new book about recognizing the values of others certainly good for the |
| 0:39.7 | spirit of the C. K. Smith, the two-time poet laureate of the United States, Pulitzer Prize winner, and these days |
| 0:56.0 | a Harvard professor of English and African American studies. |
| 0:59.6 | Her new book is called to free the captives, a plea for the American soul. |
| 1:04.1 | Tracy it's always an honor to have you on with us. Welcome back to WNYC. |
| 1:08.0 | Oh thank you so much Brian what a pleasure to be back. Those are some big words in the title, |
| 1:13.9 | free and captives and a plea and the American soul. |
| 1:17.9 | Start anywhere you like to introduce people to this book, |
| 1:20.8 | but maybe on how you think of the word free or freedom. Yeah sure. |
| 1:24.5 | A big title and I feel like we're living with such big stakes that I want to |
| 1:29.7 | invite readers to think about how we can be useful to the work that that lies ahead of us. |
| 1:35.8 | One of the big concepts that the book seeks to explore is the nature of freedom as it exists in the American |
| 1:41.8 | imagination and one thing that I've come to freedom as it exists in the American imagination. |
| 1:43.2 | And one thing that I've come to believe |
| 1:45.6 | is that in our culture, freedom is something |
| 1:49.8 | that we think of as belonging differently |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from WNYC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of WNYC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.

