Ariana Reines's Quest for 21st-Century Epic Verse

By LARB Radio HourJuly 19, 2019

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Poet Ariana Reines joins co-hosts Eric Newman and Kate Wolf to discuss A Sand Book, her most ambitious work to date. The show opens with a powerful extended passage from the poem "A Partial History." If listeners are not yet aware of Reines as one this century's great new voices, they will be within five minutes: a rhythmic cascade of language rife with resonant images of social conflict, dissipation, recurring glimmers of self-awareness lost in a flood of unrelenting distraction, but our drive to quest never extinguished — epic verse for our lost society. What follows then is a series of reflections on the promise of 21st-century language and the new territories where Reines is searching for, and finding, inspiration.

Also, Erica Jong returns to recommend Horizon by Barry Lopez, the National Book Award-winner's new work of non-fiction.