The New Yorker Radio Hour

Episode: Poetry as a Cistern for Love and Loss

Date: December 16, 2025
Host: David Remnick
Guest: Gabriel Calvo Caressi (Poet)
Interviewer: Kevin Young (New Yorker Poetry Editor)

Overview:

This episode delves into the poetry of Gabriel Calvo Caressi, whose collection The New Economy was a National Book Award finalist. Through a vibrant and candid conversation with poetry editor Kevin Young, Calvo Caressi discusses their poetic forms, the recurring motif of the cistern as a source of echo and memory, and the intimate intersections of love, loss, and survival that run through their work. The episode highlights how poetry can be both a vessel for communal memory and a means of personal renewal—what Calvo Caressi describes as "a cistern for love and loss." The discussion includes moving readings of Calvo Caressi’s poems and reflections on family, community, and the truths poetry can hold.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Concept Behind The New Economy

• Origins of the Title
  • The New Economy title is not a reference to economics but the "cost" of living, loving, and community.
  • Caressi describes an "economy of kindness, love, and generative hunger."
  • Quote:

    "This book is so much about what it is to reach out, what it is to feast with people, what it is to protect people, and what it is to do a lot of times under real duress, which I think...Like the stock market, we are rising and falling." — Gabriel Calvo Caressi [01:40]

• Connection Across Books
  • Recurring ideas and language connect Calvo Caressi’s books—“echoes and reverberations.”
  • Inspired by jazz and opera, they see recurring phrases as musical riffs threading through their work and life.
  • Quote:

    "What if I said I love you 75 times and every time it sounded a little different?...Or can I have that donut? Which is also something that might show up in the poems." — Gabriel Calvo Caressi [03:04]

Crafting Poetic Voice and Rhythm

• Much of Calvo Caressi’s poetry begins in movement—walking is generative for them due to a neurological condition affecting balance, making the act of walking both literal and metaphorical for their art.
• Quote:

  "Once I could start walking, I really didn't stop. And walking is still though a thing that's kind of a challenge for me. Balance is tough for me. But this act of walking, moving...I'm also, like, a professional daydreamer." — Gabriel Calvo Caressi [04:40]

The "Cistern" Form

• Inspiration and Meaning
  • Inspired by Pauline Oliveros's Deep Listening Project, which involved musicians playing in a giant cistern to create a unified sound from diverse echoes.
  • The cistern becomes a symbol for memory, community, and resonance in Caressi’s work.
  • Quote:

    "I'm the most recent top of the cistern of my family. I'm the most recent top of the cistern of my own experience...I'm just, like, down in the cistern also speaking my piece. And we're all coming together, and at some point, someone's gonna stand on the top and they're gonna hear us all." — Gabriel Calvo Caressi [07:11]

Reading: "Hammond B3 Organ Cistern"

• Notable Passages & Reflection
  • The poem is a candid meditation on survival, gratitude, and days when the narrator chooses to live.
  • Quote:

    "The days I don't want to kill myself are extraordinary...Bring the band out on the stoop. Hallelujah." — Gabriel Calvo Caressi [09:39–11:37]

• On Writing About Survival & Suicidal Thoughts
  • Caressi shares the honesty of discussing difficult subjects, treating past silence about suicide as another "closet" to emerge from.
  • Quote:

    "That wasn’t—being able to talk about that was like another closet I was in. I've lived in lots of closets in my life, and that was maybe the deepest." — Gabriel Calvo Caressi [13:22]

Loss, Family, and Generational Reflection

• Writing About Their Mother’s Death
  • The poet’s mother died by suicide at 42; Caressi reflects on aging beyond her, exploring loss through generational lens and social context.
  • Quote:

    "What is it when we get older than our parents were when they died?...She is definitely one of the ghosts." — Gabriel Calvo Caressi [15:06]

• Place and Community
  • Living in Durham, NC, evokes a sense of childhood, community rituals, and interconnectedness, reminding Caressi of their Connecticut roots and reinforcing themes of kinship and belonging.
  • Quote:

    "One of the reasons...I immediately felt so comfortable, was like, there were just grandmothers everywhere. And I live my life like, I'm coming...my grandmother's gonna say something to me." — Gabriel Calvo Caressi [16:24]

The "Miss Yous" Poems

• Exploring Grief and Love Through Repetition and Ritual
  • "Miss you would like to take a walk with you..."—a series of poems enacting longing, ritual, and the desire to reconnect with loved ones lost.
  • Caressi speaks about the alchemy of language and ritual in poetry as literal acts of calling and remembrance.
  • Reading excerpt:

    "Miss you would like to take a walk with you do not care if you arrive in just your skeleton...wish you would come back for a while don't even need to bring your skin sack I'll know you I know you'll know me Even though I'm bigger now Grayer I'll show you my garden..." — Gabriel Calvo Caressi [19:25–20:50]

• On Ritual and Authenticity in Poetry
  • Caressi emphasizes writing with their true voice, as anything less would not "bring the loved one back."
  • Quote:

    "If I wrote a poem asking her to come back, that didn't sound like the truth either. She wouldn't come, or when she did, I'd be grounded." — Gabriel Calvo Caressi [22:13]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On poetry as living resonance:
  "What if I'm just building a deep well here? You know? Like, what if I'm just in a deep well and someday I'm not gonna be here anymore?" — Gabriel Calvo Caressi [07:11]

• On survival and confronting stigma:
  "There should be a word for it. The days you wake up and do not want to slit your throat...If you don't know, then you're lucky. But also, you poor thing." [09:39]

• On the communal function of poetry and ritual:
  "If one wanted to do quote, like what I do here, it's about trusting your cadence, trusting the way you breathe...they can actually make something happen." [22:36]

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Origin of "The New Economy" & Poetic Continuity: [01:29–04:29]
• On Poetic Process and Walking: [04:29–05:52]
• Developing the "Cistern" Poetic Form: [05:52–08:15]
• Reading and Discussion: “Hammond B3 Organ Cistern”: [09:39–11:37]
• Navigating Survival, Suicide, and Candor in Poetry: [12:18–14:10]
• Family, Loss, and Writing Past Parental Death: [15:06–16:24]
• Community, Place, and Southern Kinship: [16:24–18:20]
• Introduction and Reading of the “Miss Yous” Poems: [18:20–20:50]
• Reflections on Ritual and Authentic Voice: [21:09–23:21]

Tone & Style

The conversation is intimate, candid, often lightly humorous, and deeply heartfelt. Kevin Young guides the discussion with the warmth and understanding of a fellow poet, inviting Calvo Caressi to reflect openly, and Caressi responds with sincerity, vulnerability, and flashes of humor even on the heaviest themes.

Conclusion

This episode is a profound exploration of how poetry acts as a "cistern", both a vessel for personal and collective memory and a medium to echo experiences of love, loss, and resilience. Through Gabriel Calvo Caressi’s lyrical voice and Kevin Young’s thoughtful engagement, listeners are invited to contemplate the everyday economies of feeling that shape us all.

For further reading:
Gabriel Calvo Caressi's work can be found at newyorker.com and in the anthology A Century of Poetry in the New Yorker.
The New Economy is out now and was a finalist for the National Book Award.