Big news! This week on the Scottish Poetry Library podcast, former Poet Laureate of the United States Robert Pinsky discusses poems, poetry readers, jazz and his curious family history, he talks about his enthusiasm for his Favorite Poem Project – “For me a poem is a work of art that’s so intimate and so internal that its medium is any reader’s voice,” he talks about all sorts of stuff in a voice that could announce this summer’s blockbusters. In a wide ranging interview, he speaks about his formative years – “I grew up among very verbal, eloquent, skillful joke tellers and complainers and arguers and liars” – and the way he tries to capture music in language. He also reads a number of his poems and talks about his passion for poetry. “I never defended poetry. I don’t believe in commercials for poetry. It is so fundamental, so large, so central… It’s an insult to poetry to advocate for it or defend it.”

This is a pretty special conversation that I enjoyed the heck out of, and I hope you do too! Click the little triangle for some of the best words you’ll hear today.