Kevin Young and Ariel Francisco Consider James Wright's 'By a Lake in Minnesota'

For the New Yorker's poetry podcast, editor and poet Kevin Young hosts poet and translator Ariel Francisco, who, after a deep dive into the magazine's poetry archives, found James Wright's poem "By a Lake in Minnesota," published in the September 17, 1960 issue of the magazine. Their conversation centers around that particular poem, culminating with Francisco reading a poem of his own. "Thanks for having me man. I'm really excited," Francisco begins. "So I'm excited too," says Young. On from there: 

The poem you've chosen to read today is James Wright's poem "By a Lake in Minnesota." What drew you to this particular poem while you were looking through our archive.

Ariel Francisco [00:00:48] Yeah looking through the archive was just a ton of fun so just typing in you know all the poets I admire and looking through all the poems that they've published in The New Yorker and I had forgotten about this James Wright poem though it is in, I think it's in "The Branch Will Not Break,".

Kevin Young [00:01:03] Right.

Ariel Francisco [00:01:04] Which is one of my favorite books. But it has so many good poems that even the good ones get buried amongst the other good ones so it was like finding something familiar that I had forgotten that I really liked. So was a joy to encounter it again in the archives.

Kevin Young [00:01:18] Great let's hear it. This is Ariel Francisco reading "By a Lake in Minnesota" by James Wright.

Ariel Francisco [00:01:25] "By a Lake in Minnesota" by James Wright.

Kevin Young [00:01:59] Mm hmm I love that. That was "By a Lake in Minnesota," written by James Wright which was originally published in the September 17th 1960, issue of the magazine. I love how it starts upshore and ends with this down shore.

Ariel Francisco [00:02:13] Yeah that opening line is just bananas. Upshore from the cloud m dash. That's great right.

Kevin Young [00:02:20] I do love an m dash. I'll be honest.

Ariel Francisco [00:02:23] Back to back m dashes.

Kevin Young [00:02:24] Eah you gotta do it sometimes. Emily Dickinson. So tell me what else drew you to this. I mean it's interesting in contrast to the poem we're going to see by you because I feel like they're talking to each other in a funny way. In part this is a -- is it a study of nature or is it nature as seen from the city. You know that pastoral tradition. How do you think of it?

Ariel Francisco [00:02:46] It's almost an existential crisis for me this kind of observation of you know these gigantic things the sky and then you know Twilight as a whale and then sort of coming back down small to the beaver and then back out again to the moon walking. You know it's like this breathing this kind of huge small huge. And then the smallest of all is you know the speaker standing in the dark at the end just kind of under the weight of everything. It's kind of terrifying but it's fantastic.

Read more of the transcript (or listen to their complete conversation) at the New Yorker.