Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed.

Or you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read.

From KCRW Santa Monica, I'm Michael Silverblatt, and this is Bookworm.

Today, I'm very happy to have as my guest, Mattia Harvey.

She is the author most recently of Modern Life, a book of poems, published by Grey Wolf.

She's the author as well of Sad Little Breathing Machine and Pity the Bathtub, its Forced

Embrace of the Human Form.

She's the winner of the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and for this year.

And I find her work really remarkable.

What I like best about it is that somehow its extraordinary playfulness drops through a trapdoor and becomes profound.

I thought I'd read a quote from James Tate, another favorite poet, who says about

Mattia's work, puzzles, conundrums, pithy arguments.

None of these terms describe the poems in sad little breathing machine

by Mattia Harvey. I pictured myself arriving at an amusement park, only none of the rides are

familiar. I considered running away. I could break my neck or be catapulted into the sky.

I might never be seen again. It's only poetry,

I reminded myself and climbed on board. I'm tossed and bucked and jabbed and lashed and flipped.

I'm having a nearly insane amount of fun, and I don't want it to ever end.

Now, I guess I thought I'd ask you a question I've asked you before.

...