Interesting People Reading Poetry is a short, sound-rich podcast where artists and luminaries read a favorite poem and share what it means to them. Created by Andy & Brendan Stermer.
Andy Stermer presents his ambient album "Of Modern Poetry," inspired by classic poems and previous show guests, offering a sonic journey through literary history.
14 Aug 2025
Novelist Lisa Ko Reads Tracy K. Smith
In this episode, novelist Lisa Ko reads “Don’t You Wonder, Sometimes?” by Tracy K. Smith. Ko’s first book, The Leavers, was a 2017 National Book Award finalist. Her most recent book, Memory Piece (Riverhead Books, 2024) was described in Electric Literature as “a poignant meditation on late-stage capitalism: what it means to exist in an age of surveillance and government tracking, what it means to create art in an era where identity itself is commodified, and what it means to find purpose.”
Tracy K. Smith is an American poet born in 1972. “Don’t You Wonder, Sometimes?” was first collected in Life on Mars (Graywolf Press, 2011), winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. The poem is also included in Such Color: New and Selected Poems (Graywolf Press, 2021).
Keep up with Lisa Ko at lisa-ko.com.
We feature one short listener poem at the end of every episode. To submit, call the Haiku Hotline at 612-440-0643 and read your poem after the beep. For the occasional prompt, follow us on Facebook.
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23 Dec 2024
Poetry Playlist: Long Track Blues
This IPRP Poetry Playlist features a selection of archival recordings from PennSound, a project of the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing at the University of Pennsylvania. The PennSound website includes an extensive audio archive with free recordings of hundreds of poets reading their own work.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4LaSIL9xy50Zf8hhFutG7Y?si=rq4P94nZSemjjXV6CWMRtw
Tracklist
1. "Long Track Blues” by Sterling Brown appears in The Collected Poems of Sterling A. Brown, published by TriQuarterly. A recording of the poem is included in the Sterling Brown archive on PennSound.
2. "Rails in the Subway" by Charles Reznikoff appears in The Poems Of Charles Reznikoff: 1918-1975, published by Black Sparrow Press. A recording of the poem is included in the Charles Reznikoff archive on PennSound.
3. “At North Farm" by John Ashbery appears in Selected Poems, published by Penguin Books. A recording of the poem is included in the John Ashbery archive on PennSound.
This episode uses the sounds “Accordion drone” and “Untuned piano” by adrianorhagen from freesound.org under the Attribution 4.0 license.
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Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
4.8 / 5
101 ratings
Spotify
4.9 / 5
42 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 25 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
13
Social presence
0
YouTube
0
Engagement
95
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