Podcast Summary: The New Yorker: Poetry

Episode Title: Adrian Matejka Reads C.D. Wright
Host: Kevin Young
Guest: Adrian Matejka
Release Date: February 25, 2026

Episode Overview

In this thoughtful and engaging episode, poet Adrian Matejka joins The New Yorker’s poetry editor, Kevin Young, to discuss the poetry of C.D. Wright and to read his own poem “Almost Home.” The episode explores the nuanced poetics of both Wright and Matejka, examining themes of time, memory, place, and poetic inheritance. The discussion is wide-ranging, offering literary analysis, personal anecdotes, reflections on poetic form, and the continual process of writing and revising poetry.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. C.D. Wright’s “Against the Encroaching Grays”

• Why This Poem?
  Matejka expresses deep admiration for C.D. Wright’s ability to be at once “simple and ornate.” He cites her own phrase: “I'm plain and sophisticated at the same time.” He praises how Wright expanded his understanding of what a Southern poet could be.
  (02:02–02:46)

• Reading of the Poem
  Matejka reads Wright’s poem, which meditates on aging, desire, forgiveness, memory, and the shifting clarity of wants over time.
  (02:55–03:51)

Notable Analysis:

• Sense of Time and Mortality
  Young notes the poem’s awareness of time, especially in lines like, “What I want is less clear to me now than it was then.” He and Matejka discuss how the poem evokes aging and the changing lens of priorities.
  (03:53–04:29, 04:29–05:27)

• Form and Syntax
  Matejka highlights the lack of punctuation, the use of “intersects” and the one-word line “Instead”—all contributing to a “slowing” and ambiguity.

  “For me, it slows it down because I can’t figure out where I’m supposed to start and stop.”
  (05:33–05:37, 05:56–06:18)

• Melancholy and Nostalgia
  The poem’s attention to “a lost dog answering to Scout,” nostalgia for farmer’s markets, and the simultaneity of past and present evoke both melancholy and fondness.
  (07:07–07:47)

• Ars Poetica & the “Dark Clot”
  Matejka and Young interpret the poem’s ending—“the dark clot of poetry breaks off”—as a powerful ars poetica, symbolizing both the birth and renewal of poetic language.

  “I’d never heard of poetry described as a clot...but then I realized, wait a minute, this is an ars poetica, right?” (Matejka, 09:07)
  “It feels more like the beginning or beginning again.” (Young, 11:16)

Language, Biblical Resonance & “Ruth”

• Discussion about the rare word “Ruth” ("to be loved to the end without Ruth or recrimination"), its “preacherly” Southern and biblical resonance, and it shaping the poem’s voice.

  “Ruth is one of those great words you never hear people use. They usually hear it in the opposite, ruthless...It sounds exactly right.” (Young, 11:29–12:29)

• Place, Poetic Cataloging, and Public vs. Private Voice
  The later half of the poem is seen as cataloging, shifting from the self to observations of everyday life—a hallmark of Wright’s “big self” poetics (with a nod to Whitman and Wright’s work “One Big Self”).
  (15:26–16:35)

• Simultaneity and Poetic Reach
  Both speakers commend Wright’s ability to “excavate” and “reach,” crafting poetry that is intimate yet cosmic, present yet slightly out of reach.

  “Her poems always feel like they're excavating, but they also feel like they're here, but also on another planet somehow.” (Matejka, 17:15)

2. On Posthumous Poems & Literary Archives

• Publication After Death
  Young and Matejka reflect on the publication of this poem after Wright’s passing, the melancholy of a “final utterance,” and the continual discovery within an evolving archive.

  “You only read them once for the first time.” (Matejka, 19:19)
  “There's always more within that poem...the archive itself changes over time because we change.” (Young, 20:31–21:55)

3. Adrian Matejka’s “Almost Home”

• Introduction & Influence
  Matejka introduces his poem “Almost Home” (published December 15, 2025 in The New Yorker) as an homage to Beat poet Bob Kaufman. Discussion focuses on Kaufman’s outsized influence, place within the Beats, and his “vow of silence.”
  (27:12–28:34)

• Reading of “Almost Home”
  Matejka paints intertwined portraits of Bob Kaufman and his own hometown, Indianapolis, juxtaposing San Francisco's poetic legacy and malaise with Midwestern landscape and realities.
  (29:48–31:47)

Analysis:

• Cities, Place, and Identity
  The poem contrasts the glamor and unattainability of San Francisco with the affordable reality—yet overlooked vibrance—of Indianapolis, using humor, candid observation, and political undertone.

  “Not like my hometown of Indianapolis, where four skyscrapers stand affordably in the center of your wallet’s imagination...Indy can be just as fantastic and horny as San Francisco or Paris at times.” (29:48–31:47)

• Blackness, Urban Change, and Mourning
  Matejka notes Indianapolis as a “diverse city in the middle of a very red state,” pointing to tensions around race, urban change, and loss (in both his city and in San Francisco’s disappearing Black neighborhoods).
  (36:40–37:35)

• Witness and Exile
  Bob Kaufman as “a poet of witness,” walking the city in silence—a motif paralleled with C.D. Wright’s cafe observer.

  “He’s kind of a poet of exile. Even when he’s there, he’s a silent poet, this kind of contradiction in terms.” (Young, 38:17)
  “He can be quiet. He can be in his period of silence at the end of this. But even that was him speaking out against things.” (Matejka, 39:43)

• Poetic Form: The One-Stanza Structure
  Matejka discusses why “Almost Home” is written as a single unbroken stanza—seeking “relentless music” and connection, mirroring the continuity of city life and the “walk” through place and memory.

  “There’s this kind of connection, but also kind of observing of connection...writing through this form full of connection lets you also think about distance.” (Young, 42:57)

Memorable Quote

“For a time, Bob Kaufman was the most famous poet in France, bigger than Verlaine or the pirate Rimbaud. But in San Francisco, during his ten years of silence, he was wrong eyed and woebegone.” (Matejka, 29:48–31:47)

4. On Writing, Revising & Selected Poems

• Drafting a Selected Volume
  Matejka describes the challenge of assembling his selected poems ("Be Easy: New and Selected Poems," forthcoming March 2026), reflecting on growth, revisions, and how earlier work begins to hint at later stylistic developments.

  “There are poems that I was writing in my 20s, and it's just like, well, I don't even know that guy. Like, I don't even know who he is.” (Matejka, 43:37)

• Revision as a Living Practice
  Inspired by Yusef Komunyakaa, Matejka marks up and revises poems after publication, seeing poems not as enshrined but as “living documents.”

  “It said to me that you're allowed to treat a poem like a living document.” (46:18)

• Writing as Ongoing Process
  Matejka frames his career as “getting ready for the next thing,” seeing each book and poem as a necessary step toward a someday-perfect poem.

  “At some point I have the feeling that I'll finally write the poem I'm trying to figure out. And when I do...then I'm going to kind of probably be done with this.” (47:20)

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On C.D. Wright's Poetics
  “She sort of expanded all of that for me. She was somehow simple and ornate at the same time.” — Adrian Matejka (01:59)

• On the Poem’s Structure
  “There’s also a great deal of pleasure in trying to unpack the shapes of the sentences or the shapes of the lines...” — Matejka (05:56)

• On Archives and Memory
  “You only read them once for the first time.” — Matejka (20:08)

• On Revision
  “...you're allowed to treat a poem like a living document. It doesn't have to be a thing that's enshrined the minute it hits a book.” — Matejka (46:18)

• On the Search for the Perfect Poem
  “Each of these things bequeaths something to the next one. And so at some point I have the feeling that I'll finally write the poem I'm trying to figure out.” — Matejka (47:20)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 01:02 – Welcome & guest introduction
• 02:46 – Why Adrian Matejka chose C.D. Wright’s poem
• 02:55 – Reading of “Against the Encroaching Grays”
• 03:53 – Discussion: Time and ambiguity in Wright’s poem
• 05:27 – Form, punctuation, and cadence in poetry
• 07:07 – Nostalgia, personal resonance, and melancholy
• 09:07 – The “dark clot” as poetry/ars poetica
• 11:29 – Language, “Ruth,” and biblical resonance
• 12:29 – Place, public vs. private voice, “big self”
• 15:26 – Cataloging & poetic voice
• 19:19 – The melancholy of posthumous publication
• 27:25 – Introduction to “Almost Home” & Bob Kaufman
• 29:48 – Reading: “Almost Home” by Adrian Matejka
• 31:47 – San Francisco vs. Indianapolis, place and identity
• 36:40 – Urban miscegenation, Blackness, and change
• 38:05 – Kaufman as poet of witness and exile
• 40:43 – Poetic form & meaning in Matejka’s work
• 43:17 – Compiling a selected poems, evolution as a poet
• 46:18 – Revision as an ongoing practice

Overall Tone & Style

The conversation is warm, intellectually rich, and collegial. Both poets move fluidly between close readings, literary allusions, personal anecdotes, and discussions of poetic craft. Adrian Matejka brings humility, humor, and candor to the conversation, while Kevin Young deftly balances insight, generous questioning, and literary context.

Conclusion

This episode offers a deep engagement with two poets united by their curiosity, willingness to explore the complexities of voice and memory, and reverence for poetic process. The conversation is essential for anyone interested in contemporary poetry, poetics of place, and how writers make, revise, and carry poetry forward across generations. Both the readings and the discussion provide fresh insight into the enduring power of C.D. Wright’s work and Adrian Matejka’s vibrant contribution to American letters.