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 poets 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.

My guest today is Joy Harjo, the current poet laureate of the United States.

She's also a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, and her many honors include the Ruth

Lily Poetry Prize and the Wallace Stevens Award. Joy, welcome. Thanks so much for joining us.

It's great to be here with you.

So the poem you decided to read today is still life with potatoes, pearls,

raw meat, rhinestones, lard, and horse hooves

by Sandra Cisneros.

Tell us, what drew you to this particular poem

as you're looking through our archive?

I guess it appeared recently,

but it's a little bit older poem of Sandra's.

And I like the wildness of it.

You know, it reminds me, especially in these times when we can't even go hang out,

of being able to hang out and visit with people and be wild with people and dream and dream together and and have fun.

You know, even as it's also a poem, I think also a little bit about being at the edge of ruin

and discovery, which is usually the same place or can be the same place.

Let's listen to the poem.

Here's Joy Harjo, reading Still Life with Potatoes, Pearls, Raw Meat, Rhinestones, Lard, and Horse Hoves by Sandra Sissneros.

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