Jim Moore Reads Jane Mead

Summary

Podcast Summary: The New Yorker: Poetry – "Jim Moore Reads Jane Mead"

Release Date: October 23, 2024
Host: Kevin Young, Poetry Editor of The New Yorker
Guest: Jim Moore, Acclaimed Poet and Author

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Introduction

[01:00] Kevin Young welcomes listeners to The New Yorker Poetry Podcast, introducing himself as the poetry editor of The New Yorker and outlining the program's format. He introduces Jim Moore, a distinguished poet with eight poetry collections, including his latest work, Prognosis. Moore is noted for receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship and multiple Minnesota Book Awards.

Notable Quote:

Kevin Young [01:00]: "On this program, we invite a poet 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 today."

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Jim Moore Reads Jane Mead’s "I Wonder if I Will Miss the Moss"

Selection and Initial Impressions

[01:34] Jim Moore shares his connection to Jane Mead’s poem, I Wonder if I Will Miss the Moss, highlighting its lasting impact on him since first encountering it in 2021. He emphasizes its powerful representation of personal reflection and emotional depth.

Reading of the Poem

[02:10] Jim Moore poignantly reads the entirety of Jane Mead’s poem, capturing its contemplative and evocative imagery.

Analysis and Discussion

[03:35] Kevin Young commends Moore’s reading, focusing on the poem’s pacing and its blend of benediction and annunciation. He draws attention to the stanza detailing the natural elements—stones, sticks, lichen, and moss—and explores the poem’s grounding in tangible, earthy imagery.

[04:30] Jim Moore elaborates on his interpretation, describing the poem as a conversation with an old friend delivering profound news, likely about impending death, while simultaneously celebrating a deep love for life. He discusses the poem’s shift from expansive statements to intimate, humble reflections, underscoring its humanizing effect.

Notable Quotes:

Jim Moore [04:30]: "I think she was an old friend... it was probably about an impending death, but also about a great love of life."

Kevin Young [06:00]: "It's both brave and humble... tremendous acceptance at the end."

Themes Explored:

• Nature and Belonging: The poem interweaves vivid natural imagery with a sense of belonging and connection to the earth.
• Humility and Bravery: The concluding lines convey a humble acknowledgment of one's actions and acceptance of mortality.
• Human Experience: The poem captures universal experiences of fear, love, and acceptance, making it relatable across different contexts.

[07:11] Jim Moore draws parallels between the act of walking in poetry and its historical significance, suggesting that such motifs signal shifts or changes within the narrative.

[07:32] Jim Moore clarifies that he did not know Jane Mead personally but feels a deep connection to her through her poetry, particularly this piece which was published posthumously, hinting at her illness during its creation.

[08:38] Kevin Young highlights the poem’s blend of bravery and humility, noting its matter-of-fact tone that encapsulates acceptance.

[09:21] Jim Moore reflects on the poem’s simplicity and earthiness, emphasizing its universal resonance without grandiose narratives.

[12:04] Jim Moore comments on the poem’s musicality and repetition, noting how it enhances the poem’s emotional impact.

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Jim Moore Reads His Own Poem "Mother"

[12:59] Kevin Young transitions to Moore’s own work, introducing his poem Mother, published in the July 29, 2024 issue of The New Yorker.

Reading of the Poem

[13:14] Jim Moore delivers a heartfelt and intimate reading of Mother, a poem that delves into personal trauma, loss, and the complexities of maternal relationships.

Analysis and Discussion

[15:15] Kevin Young praises the poem's emotional depth and vivid imagery, particularly the portrayal of the cat named Mother and the nuanced depiction of trauma and healing.

[17:02] Jim Moore discusses the poem’s genesis, revealing it as a pivotal piece in his exploration of personal trauma and healing. He explains the significance of the added line, "Did you know all along I was writing this poem to you?" which bridges past experiences with the present moment, enhancing the poem’s introspective quality.

[20:28] Jim Moore shares insights from Seamus Heaney’s philosophy, emphasizing the importance of spontaneity and openness in poetry. He reflects on how writing this poem allowed him to confront and articulate deeply held personal traumas, fostering a connection that transcends individual experience.

Themes Explored:

• Trauma and Healing: The poem navigates the lingering effects of trauma and the ongoing journey toward healing.
• Memory and Connection: Moore intertwines memories of his mother with his own experiences, creating a dialogue between past and present.
• Acceptance and Continuity: The poem acknowledges unresolved pain while embracing the continuity of life and relationships.

[21:53] Kevin Young reflects on the profound lessons learned from the poem, appreciating its raw honesty and the delicate balance between pain and survival.

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Discussion on Upcoming Work and Broader Reflections

[22:04] Jim Moore provides a glimpse into his forthcoming poetry collection, Enter, which began in 2020. He outlines the collection’s themes, including reflections on the pandemic, social and cultural unrest, joy, aging, and his experiences living in Italy. The collection aims to balance acknowledgment of global turbulence with moments of happiness and surprise.

Notable Quote:

Jim Moore [23:01]: "The challenge of the book... I want to live a life that's got joy in it, that's got happiness, that's got surprise in the best sense of that word."

[24:33] Jim Moore emphasizes the universality of human experiences such as pandemics and mortality, highlighting poetry’s role in connecting personal narratives to broader human contexts. He underscores the solitary yet deeply connective nature of poetry, fostering an "inner journalism" that reflects collective realities.

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Conclusion

[24:41] Kevin Young and Jim Moore wrap up the episode, expressing mutual appreciation for the insightful discussions and the shared poetic journey. They highlight where listeners can find their featured poems:

• Jane Mead’s "I Wonder if I Will Miss the Moss" and
• Jim Moore’s "Mother"
  available on newyorker.com.

Upcoming Works Mentioned:

• Jane Mead’s last book: To the New and Collected Poems
• Jim Moore’s forthcoming collection: Enter

Closing Remarks: Kevin Young encourages listeners to explore more poetry on The New Yorker website and app, providing information about related podcasts and upcoming episodes.

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Notable Quotes Compilation:

• Kevin Young [01:00]: "On this program, we invite a poet to choose a poem from the New Yorker Archive to read and discuss..."
• Jim Moore [04:30]: "I think she was an old friend... it was probably about an impending death, but also about a great love of life."
• Jim Moore [22:04]: "The challenge of the book... I want to live a life that's got joy in it..."
• Jim Moore [20:28]: "It's like, here's what it's like. It's like... you get beyond yourself in a certain way."

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This episode of The New Yorker Poetry Podcast offers a profound exploration of poetic expression, connecting personal narratives with universal themes. Through the thoughtful readings and discussions by Jim Moore and Kevin Young, listeners gain deep insights into the transformative power of poetry.

Transcript

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[Kevin Young]

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 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 today. My guest is Jim Moore, who has published eight poetry collections, including most recently Prognosis. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and multiple Minnesota Book Awards. Jim, welcome. Thanks for being here.

[Jim Moore]

Thanks for inviting me. I'm really happy to be here.

[Kevin Young]

So the first poem you've selected to read is I Wonder if I Will Miss the Moss by Jane Mead. What drew you to this particular poem when you were looking through the archives?

[Jim Moore]

Well, I remember when I first read it in 2021, I was really just so struck by it and it stayed with me. I kept going back to it as a model of something. I'm not sure exactly, but it stands in such a particularly powerful way for me.

[Kevin Young]

Well, why don't we hear the poem? This is Jim Moore reading I Wonder if I Will Miss the Moss by Jane Mead.

[Jim Moore]

I wonder if I will miss the moss. I wonder if I will miss the moss after I fly off as much as I miss it now just thinking about leaving. There were stones of many colors. There were sticks holding both lichen and moss. There were red gates with old hand forged hardware. There were fields of dry grass smelling of first rain, then of new mud. There was mud and there was the walking, all the beautiful walking and it alone filled me. The smells, the scratchy grassheads, all the sleeping under bushes, once waking to vultures above peering down with their bent heads the way they do caricatures of interest and curiosity. Once too, a lizard. Once too, a kangaroo rat. Once to a rat. They did not say I belonged to them, but I did. Whenever the experiment on and of my life begins to draw to a close, I'll go back to the place that held me and be held. It's okay. I think I did what I could. I think I sang some. I think I held my hand out.

[Kevin Young]

That was I Wonder if I Will Miss the Moss by Jane Mead, which was published in the September 20, 2021 issue of the New Yorker. I love hearing that poem from you, from Jane, but through you. And I feel like you really brought out the pacing of it, which I think is one of the things that strikes me. And sort of the beginning being this sweep, you know, and just declaring itself almost. I wonder if I will miss the moss after I fly off as much as I miss it now. Just thinking about leaving. I mean, what a benediction, you know, and a kind of annunciation at the same time. And then you have these kind of stones, as it were, like these building blocks. How do you see what it amounts to, that big stanza from There were stones of many colors down the way, too. They did not say I belonged to them, but I did. How did you see that?

[Jim Moore]

Well, first of all, the opening, as you pointed out, it does feel like a benediction. And I think of that poem as if she was an old friend and had come to sit down next to me. And she prefaced this poem by saying, I have something important to tell you. I've got some news. And in the course of the poem, the news is probably about an impending death, but it's also about a great love of life. So I think that opening sweep is lovely. And then it needs to be grounded in some way. And there's a lot of literal ground in the poem. There's mud, there's stones, there's sticks, there's the walking, all the walking. These things that are so human and so granular. So I think it's really important that she went from the opening to this really quite long. Not explanation, really, but just a sort of statement of what had mattered to her in her life. And then at the end, comes back again, not to a large statement, it's actually a very humble statement. But what does she say? I did what I could. I think I sang some. I think I held my hand out, not I did do this, I did do that. You know, like, I think I did this. I think I did that.

[Kevin Young]

Right, right.

[Jim Moore]

And that's so human because she did do those things, but the way she says them, it's so. It's just so intimate, personal.

[Kevin Young]

Yeah, yeah. Well, and it's. It's a different kind of observation. Then the sleeping and then the animals observing. The speaker, her once waking to vultures. I mean, really. Yikes. Yeah, yikes. But also, once to a lizard, once to a kangaroo rat, once to a rat, once to a rat. Yeah. There's this.

[Jim Moore]

Not enough. It's a kangaroo rat. Then she's gotta also have a rat.

[Kevin Young]

Rat. Yeah. And I think the humor, as you can hear us laughing about it, comes through, you know, And I think in that moment of, you know, undertow, there is this joy, if only in the cataloging, but also, you know, poets have been walking since there were poets and since there was walking. And so here, all the beautiful walking. I mean, I love that line. That in one line conjures this long history of poetry. It's a little like a painter drawing a horizontal line across a canvas or across a page. Suddenly there's a horizon. In one gesture, you have the whole of the art.

[Jim Moore]

Whenever a poet starts walking in a poem, and in the poem of my own, I'm going to read, same thing happens. I'm always happy because to me, it signifies that there's some shift or some change. And we're gonna hear what that is, what that's all about.

[Kevin Young]

Right, Right. Well, you said you knew her well and you knew her work, I presume.

[Jim Moore]

No, I did not know her personally. Aha. I read some of her work over the years on and off, but not a lot of it. This poem just took me by surprise. And I found out since. And it's sort of evident from the way it's set up in the magazine, it was published posthumously, that she was ill at the time that she wrote this poem. So, no, I didn't know her well.

[Kevin Young]

But now, isn't it funny? Because I felt like you did, the way you describe.

[Jim Moore]

Well, I know. That's what I feel. I feel like I know her a lot better than I know a lot of people. And it's this poem that I know her from. And I know from past experience with other poems by other poets that just because a poet writes an amazing poem doesn't mean they're always going to be an amazing, wonderful person. However. However, this poem really is just like. Come on. This is like when my time comes, and I'm no doubt approaching that time, given my age, I would be so incredibly happy if I could do something like this?

[Kevin Young]

Yeah. I mean, there's a bravery in the poem and there's a wonder. You know, that's the second word. It's such a different thing that I will miss the moss. Or even, as you say, in the end, I think I did what I could. It's different than I did what I could, which is almost a justification. Instead, it's kind of like a humility, but also there's a little bit of, like, you know, hey, I did it. You know, there's something there that's both brave and humble. And, you know, matter of fact. It's okay.

[Jim Moore]

It's okay.

[Kevin Young]

And so we sort of have this, I don't know, tremendous acceptance at the end.

[Jim Moore]

I think she must have known by the end of this poem that she'd done something extraordinary. It's just because it's so simple. It's so undramatic. Except for those vultures. There's no plot. There's nothing happening. It's not like, well, I had this great marriage or have this wonderful child or anything like that. It's so. Of the earth.

[Kevin Young]

Well, in which we all are. And it reminds us of that because it's not missing something grand necessarily. It's missing the moss. But I think smelling of first rain, then of new mud. There was mud. I think that the places where the poem repeats, the walking, all the beautiful walking, and it alone filled me. I mean, earlier today, I remember, I was like, I gotta take a walk. I gotta just get out of my head, in a way. And there's something about that process that brings us there. But then there's something I've never done. Sleeping under a bush.

[Jim Moore]

Yeah. How does that work exactly?

[Kevin Young]

It's like all the sleeping under bushes.

[Jim Moore]

How much was there? When I was a kid, I used to sleep inside the lilac bush in our family's backyard. But I was small.

[Kevin Young]

There you go. Well, again, that humor, which I think comes in that very interesting first line of. What's the last stanza? Whenever the experiment on and of.

[Jim Moore]

Isn't that amazing?

[Kevin Young]

My life. Whoa. That really is getting at it. Getting at this idea that one's life is an experiment. But also there's forces acting on. On you, the self that I think are evoked in the poem. But make it one of nature. They did not say I belong to them, but I did.

[Jim Moore]

And also those next couple of lines. Kevin. I'll go back to the place that held me and be held. There's that physicality again. It's just so beautiful. A friend wrote me and said after she read this. Mom. Yes. We would all like, when our time comes, to feel like we're being held in some way.

[Kevin Young]

That's right. Well, I feel like that belonging is throughout the poem. And it's such a beautiful expression of this feeling. And everything from its form to its exactness to its subtle musicality I think is really special.

[Jim Moore]

There's a lot of repetition. It's subtle, but it's there. And it really gives the poem its music, I think.

[Kevin Young]

And all the word all appears a few times, and I think that all is very much the point. Just thinking about leaving.

[Jim Moore]

Yes. And leaving such particular things. All the walking. You pointed it out earlier. But let's go. That line where she says all the beautiful walking and it alone. Well, in real life, that's not the only thing that fills her.

[Kevin Young]

Right.

[Jim Moore]

But in the moment of that poem, she's so in the heart of that walking and of that being of the earth. It really is. I mean, that's the thing you get to do in poems. You get to say things like that.

[Kevin Young]

I love it.

[Jim Moore]

Yeah.

[Kevin Young]

Well, that's wonderful. Well, let's talk about your poem. In the July 29, 2024 issue, the new Yorker published your poem Mother. Here's Jim Moore reading his poem Mother.

[Jim Moore]

Mother. My friend and I had a cat we called Mother. I took the couch. My friend got the one bedroom because he often had sex and needed that private darkness. I had not yet had sex of my own volition. No one knew I had been raped. I was so unknowing, I barely knew it myself. How lost I was to myself. I was maybe 20. We loved that cat that had wandered into our lives, rubbing our legs, needing love and milk and a safe place to sleep, like any creature arriving on this earth from God knows where and God knows why. One hot August day, I was sitting outside when Mother joined me and sat on my lap, a thing she'd never done before. And that was where she died. I called Jeff, who had gone to a motel somewhere with his girl of the moment. Mother died, I said. There was a long silence. Then he whispered quietly, oh, no. As if he wanted to keep his sorrow to himself. Many years later, I told my actual mother about the rape. She cried a little and was angry on my behalf. I was calm, relieved. Then life went on as it does, without much of a pause. I was not healed by telling her. I am sorry to say I am still not at 79. The beautiful gray sky of a rainy May day and the lindens coming into flower that smell you and I both love it. Did you know all along I was writing this poem to you? Often at night we walk to the river and stare down into the black current which has reached flood stage and carries everything before it.

[Kevin Young]

That was Mother by Jim Moore.

[Jim Moore]

Hi.

[Deborah Treisman]

I'm Deborah Treisman, fiction editor of the New Yorker. Each week on the Writer's Voice podcast, New Yorker fiction writers read their newly published stories from the magazine. You can hear from authors like Colson Whitehead.

[Jim Moore]

Turner nudged Elwood, who had a look of horror on his face.

[Kevin Young]

They saw it.

[Jim Moore]

Griff wasn't going down. He was going to go for it no matter what happened after.

[Deborah Treisman]

Or Joy Williams, her father was silent. Slowly he passed his hand over his hair. This usually meant that he was traveling to a place immune to her presence, a place that indeed contradicted her presence. She might as well go to lunch, listen to news stories, or dive into our archive of great fiction. You can find the work of your favorite fiction writers and discover new ones. Listen and follow the Writer's Voice wherever you get your podcasts. When your love for sneakers has you chasing limited editions, classics and rare finds, go to ebay. Score your Once in a Blue Moon pair and check off your wish list for those fresh kicks. Get authentic streetwear and expert verified accessories. Think timeless watches, vintage designer bags, and more jewelry than you can wear. Ebay the new place for new pre loved vintage and rare fashion. Yeah, ebay Things people love.

[Kevin Young]

You know, sometimes it's enough to just say, that's just an incredible poem.

[Jim Moore]

Thank you so much.

[Kevin Young]

You really bring us to that place of pain and survival. The cat is just incredible Mother. What a beautiful image. We feel like we get to know her, but also that idea of mothering, I think is very much in the poem.

[Jim Moore]

Well, thank you so much. I don't know if it's the best poem in my next book, but I do know it's the poem that I learned the most from and that I felt took me someplace that I just hadn't realized I even needed to go. You know, you deal with something over many years, some trauma, whether it's personal or cultural or whatever, and you find your solutions and you go to a therapist and you try to drink or you try not to drink or whatever. And then to be able to write this poem, I went back and looked at it. I wrote it in May, the year before, and it was almost exactly the same. I had to cut some extraneous lines. It was pretty much the same, but the one thing that got added that hadn't been there before Was. Did you know all along I was writing this poem to you and to me. That's a really key line because that brings me back to the present. Just like the walking does in the poem. It's like, okay, I've been in the past, and now I'm. Here's the month of May, here are the Lyndons, and, oh, here are you. I'm writing this poem to you, right? And I didn't understand that until after the first draft.

[Kevin Young]

You know, it's the kind of thing that would get excised out in a workshop. Maybe, like someone would say, you know, that's all. Do we need to know? It's so perfect, you know, that parenthetical. Because we did and didn't know. And the you is specific and is also us. You know, that doubleness that I think the poem understands. And to have that sort of the beautiful gray sky of a rainy May day and the lindens coming into flower, that smell. You and I both love it. Did you know all along I was writing this poem to you? Oh, that's beautiful.

[Jim Moore]

It just. It's the present moment. It allows me to be in the present. Nothing gets solved. And I think that's at the end of the poem, too. In the end, no matter how lucky a life you've had or how good a life, it all gets swept away. And that was part of the hard lesson of the poem for me, but also that you can live with trauma. And everybody has some kind of trauma in some way. At least everybody who reads or writes poetry. And yet. Okay, you've got that. Then what? How do you go on? How do you make a life that's not just a life of surviving the trauma, that's not just weighed down by your own personal story, but somehow opens up into the larger world? And I love it when poems do that.

[Kevin Young]

Well, we love it, too. And I love that, you know, it is beauty that brings us back in some way. We get the beauty before we get the you, you know, but it bridges the past and the present. Like you said, it's a really beautiful moment. You mentioned this is the poem that taught you the most. Is there something you can share about what else it's taught you?

[Jim Moore]

Well, I think Seamus Heaney has a phrase, the great Irish poet, something like, sometimes the self teaches the self about the self. And it's like. It's like, here's what it's like. It's like. You know, any poet had this experience. If you write enough poems, at a certain point, what happens is you get out beyond yourself in a certain way. Yes, you're writing from yourself. Yes, you're writing about yourself, but something else comes in. So I think what it's teaching in a sort of larger sense, is to trust spontaneity, to trust openness. If that moment comes. If that open moment comes in the writing of a poem, go with it, because it's going to take you someplace. And, you know, you don't have to publish it later if you don't want to. But that's, I think, what I learned, and specifically from this poem. I mean, I cannot tell you how many poems I've written about my mother over the years. Starting in my very first book back in 1970, something. I have a little poem called Secrets. I say in the poem that there are some secrets you don't tell your mother. And in the poem, it's a little prose poem. I'm referring to eating peanut butter right out of the jar. Well, in fact, there was a much deeper secret, a much more important secret, which this poem is about and which is the first poem where I talk about the secret that I had kept from her all these years. So. Yeah.

[Kevin Young]

Well, that's a lot to learn.

[Jim Moore]

That's a lot to learn.

[Kevin Young]

I want to ask you about your next book. You mentioned a little bit. Tell us a little bit about that.

[Jim Moore]

So the next book began life in 2020. So there are a number of poems that are directly referring to the pandemic. But also, I would say about the book, as I said about this poem, that the challenge of the book, because it's a time of such social unrest and such cultural unrest. And, you know, I've lived 81 years. I've lived through some very turbulent periods. This one tops them all. I mean, we're in something right now that's unprecedented. And so the book has to acknowledge all that. At the same time, you know, I want to live a life that's got joy in it, that's got happiness, that's got surprise in the best sense of that word. So a lot of the poems have some moments, like the moment in this poem of the lindens and the beautiful gray may sky. You know, there are love poems. There are poems set in Italy, because I live in Italy part of the year, and so that factors in. And certainly aging is part of it.

[Kevin Young]

How terrific. We look forward to it. And I know we ran some of your lockdown poems, and I think what that taught me is how powerful poetry can be. I think I knew this. But as a kind of witness and I think that applies to all the poems we've talked about today, both, but also especially yours, and this honesty and bravery along the way.

[Jim Moore]

Oh, thank you. What I thought about going through lockdown and all of that, and what I think about approaching dying, not that I'm not ill at all, but it gets closer. And of course, her poem is about that. There are a few experiences that really are human across all boundaries. Certainly the pandemic was one, certainly dying is another. And it's really an honor to even be able to approach those topics when I feel like, yes, I'm speaking about myself and from myself, but I'm really trying to see what the connection is to other people and other worlds. And, you know, like a lot of poets, I'm fairly solitary by nature, but I do feel I connect in this particular way, and I connect when I read other people's poems. I know you've had the same experience. It's just like, yes, that's our world. That's our world. And we get to respond to it. It's like an inner journalism or something.

[Kevin Young]

It's so well said. And I really appreciate you joining me today to talk about these poems and to share yours, Kevin.

[Jim Moore]

Thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

[Kevin Young]

Mother by Jim Moore, as well as Jane Mead's I Wonder if I Will Miss the Moss can be found on new yorker.com Jane Mead's last book was to the New and Collected Poems. Jim Moore's forthcoming collection is Enter.

[Deborah Treisman]

You may subscribe to this podcast, the Fiction podcast, the Writer's Voice podcast, and the Politics and More podcast by Searching for or the New Yorker in your podcast app. You can hear more poetry read by the authors on new yorker.com and the New Yorker app, available from the App Store or from Google Play. The theme music is the Corner by Chief Zion Otunde Adjua, courtesy of Stretch Music and Rope a Dope. The New Yorker Poetry Podcast is produced by Chloe Prosinos with help from Hannah Eisenman. Hi, I'm Susan Glaser. I'm Jane Mayer.

[Jim Moore]

And I'm Evan Osnos. And we host the Washington Roundtable from the New Yorker's Political Scene podcast.

[Deborah Treisman]

For me, this is the water cooler. This is a wonderful chance to sit down with two of the smartest colleagues in the country and, you know, just kind of compare notes. Now that's so true. Cause first of all, we are actually friends in real life. But I can't wait till Fridays to hear what you guys think. Everybody sees the headlines, but you guys fill in the gaps.

[Kevin Young]

I also think, though, occasionally we get.

[Jim Moore]

Somebody to come on, and I'm always smarter for it. If you get a great historian who.

[Kevin Young]

Can tell you about a presidential election.

[Jim Moore]

50, 60 years ago, often it can.

[Kevin Young]

Help you understand about what's happening today.

[Deborah Treisman]

So if you're looking for weekly insights into what's going on inside the Beltway, please join us every Friday on the Washington Roundtable, part of the New Yorkers Political Scene podcast.

[Jim Moore]

From prx.