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 pick 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 Richie Hoffman, the author of two collections of poetry, and the recipient of a Ruth

Lully Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, and a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University.

He teaches at the University of Chicago.

Welcome, Richie.

Thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me, Kevin.

It's great to have you in this new year.

So the first poem you've chosen to read

is Twilight by Henri Cole. Tell us what drew you to this particular poem while you were looking

through our archive? It's a really strange poem, a poem that keeps me on my toes. It's constantly

turning and twisting and returning and making room, I think,

for a lot of different kind of language.

Well, let's give it a listen.

This is Richie Hoffman reading Twilight by Henri Cole.

Twilight.

There's a black bear in the apple tree and he won't come down.

I can hear him panting like an athlete.

I can smell the stink of his body.

Come down, Black Bear. Can you hear me?

...