A dying man determines that his promising young pupil must become a prima ballerina. He’ll take her on for next to nothing; with one-on-one lessons, she’ll progress fast, as fast as he is dying. Her parents say yes.
Devon Walker-Figueroa’s “Private Lessons” spooks me. I’ve read it many times now, and I still find myself tense at the end of each line, ensorcelled by the poem’s pas de deux between life and death, devotion and discipline, student and teacher.
In Episode 16 of Multi-Verse, Walker-Figueroa and I discuss it means to be haunted by lessons long since over. (Are they ever really over?) “What use,” the poet wonders,
in maligning his methods now? His name
is just a sound
I hear in sleep.
Listen to the silences as well as the syllables. This is not your grandfather’s ghost story.
Devon Walker-Figueroa’s debut poetry collection is Philomath (Milkweed Editions, 2021).
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 for free on Substack, Soundcloud, Apple, Spotify, or the Multi-Verse website.
Episode 16: Dancing in purgatory with Devon Walker-Figueroa