Read By: Tobias Wolff

92Y's Read By

Tobias Wolff on his selection:

I read three poems, two by my longtime friend and colleague, Eavan Boland, who died last year, a loss that I feel still. There is a tradition in Irish poetry, inflected by the long Independence movement and a certain kind of heroic poetry, that Boland confronts. The third poem is one by John N. Morris, a poem I have carried in my mind since the mid-70s, that has gathered meaning for me as I had my own children, and now grandchildren: the heroism of learning to let go.

New Collected Poems by Eavan Boland

The Life Beside This One by John N. Morris

Music: "Shift of Currents" by Blue Dot Sessions // CC BY-NC 2.0