Dear Ears,
This is not your standard nature poem.
In Episode 3 of Multi-Verse, Mikko Harvey joins me to read and discuss “Let the World Have You.” Yes, Mikko’s poem features a goose, a frozen lake, a cat, a bear trap, a distant winter, a “No Trespassing” sign. Think this scene is familiar? Look again:
The signs fantasized
about the activities
they forbid.
The ice fantasized
about being shattered
suddenly by something
heavy, like a piano.
The goose guarded
her fantasy — which involved
a doorway, her mother,
and a pile of bones
— carefully.
“Let the World Have You” leads us through a prickly landscape of reality checks—or anti-reality checks. How does anything find its self in the world, be it goose or trap or lake or joke? After talking with Mikko about the inner lives of objects and animals, I’ll be looking at warning signs with new tenderness and chipmunks with new apprehension.
“Let the World Have You” is the title poem of Mikko’s new collection, published with House of Anansi Press in April this year. The book hums with sharp-eyed curiosity and sharp-toothed insight: each encounter is a trust fall. There are, happily, plenty of animals.
I love Let the World Have You, and so do quite a few other people. Print copies sold out! While you wait for your backlisted order to arrive, you can read the collection as an e-book.
You can find the episode and subscribe to the episode by clicking on one of the buttons below, or by searching “Multi-Verse” in your podcast app.
Thank you for listening to another episode of Multi-Verse.
Here’s to sacred rabbits everywhere,
Evangeline
Multi-Verse is a poetry podcast hosted and produced by Evangeline Riddiford Graham. To hear more poets share and discuss the poems they don’t usually read aloud, subscribe to Multi-Verse at Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, SoundCloud, or visit multiversepoetry.org.
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Episode 3: Cats and Bear Traps with Mikko Harvey