This week on The Write Question, Lauren returns to her conversation with poet Kaveh Akbar, whose sophomore poetry collection, ‘Pilgrim Bell’ (Graywolf Press), empties the self of the self—of one’s nation, or nations, of one’s family, of one’s knowledge—leaving only one’s hollowed, and hallowed, body. An early review of Pilgrim Bell states, “The poetry of Kaveh Akbar reminds you that the body is a temple and that the most astounding shit happens in temples.” Yes. Pilgrim Bell is astounding.
About Kaveh:
Kaveh Akbar's poems appear in The New Yorker, Paris Review, The New York Times, Best American Poetry, and elsewhere. He is the author of two books of poetry — Pilgrim Bell (Graywolf 2021) and Calling a Wolf a Wolf (Alice James 2017) — and the editor of The Penguin Book of Spiritual Verse: 100 Poets on the Divine.
Born in Tehran, Iran, Kaveh teaches at Purdue University and in the low-residency MFA programs at Randolph and Warren Wilson college. Currently, he serves as Poetry Editor for The Nation.
Kaveh Akbar recommends:
Zong! by M. NourbeSe Philip (Wesleyan University Press)
Headwaters by Ellen Bryant Voigt (W. W. Norton & Company)
No One Is Talking About This (Riverhead Books)
The Luminous Republic and Such Small Hands by Andrés Barba (Granta Books)
A Fan’s Notes by Frederick Exley (Vintage Books)
Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
First Love by Ivan Turgenev (Penguin Random House)
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (Vintage Books)
Lauren Korn recommends:
Calling a Wolf a Wolf (Alice James Books) and Pilgrim Bell (Graywolf Press) by Kaveh Akbar
Magdalene by Marie Howe (W. W. Norton & Company)
Heaven’s Thieves by Sue Sinclair (Brick Books)
Space Struck by Paige Lewis (Sarabande Books)
The New Worldby Kelly Schirmann (Black Ocean)
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The Write Question team is Lauren Korn, host and co-producer; Peter Hoag, co-producer and editor; and Beth Anne Austein, sound engineer.
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