What kind of poetry did Jeffrey Epstein support? In this ep (we’re back!) we explore Elisa New’s Poetry in America, a PBS TV series (2018–2025) and suite of educational programs that received funding and other support from Jeffrey Epstein. New, a scholar of American literature, is married to Larry Summers and exchanged a number of emails with Epstein that you can find over at jmail.world. We dive into this dark material and think through literature’s role in Epstein’s circles—literature used as currency, luxury, alibi, and pre-AI AI. We get into the problems of higher ed and the problems of arts funding, poetry, and feminized labor. For your sake we did the hard work of watching this pretty hard-to-watch show and we came out with some thoughts about canonicity, power, possession, and poetry in its elite and populist modes.

Thanks to a bunch of sources including Julie K. Brown’s reporting in the Miami Herald and her highly recommended book Perversion of Justice; Drop Site News; the Harvard Crimson (here and here). The email you hear at the opening can be found here. Oh and one point we’re talking about an episode on Emily Dickinson—this actually features Marie Howe not Susan Howe. A few more sources to credit:

Susan D’Agostino, “Leon Botstein’s Immoral Accounting,” Chronicle of Higher Ed, June 5, 2026. https://www.chronicle.com/article/leon-botsteins-amoral-accounting

The Jewish Currents podcast “On the Nose” episode featuring Ryan Grim and Noah Kulwin, Nov. 28 2025, https://jewishcurrents.org/on-jeffrey-epstein

Jenifer B. McKim, “PBS Cuts Ties with TV Program amid Probe of Harvard Host and Jeffrey Epstein,” GBH News, Dec. 10, 2025. https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2025-12-10/pbs-cuts-ties-with-tv-program-amid-probe-of-harvard-host-and-jeffrey-epstein

Tricia L. Nadolny and Deirdre Fernandes, “After Epstein Revelations, Arizona State University Parts Ways with Elisa New, Harvard Professor and Larry Summers’ Wife,” Boston Globe, Dec. 18, 2025, https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/12/18/metro/epstein-summers-harvard-asu-poetry/