Erika Meitner joins Kevin Young to read “What Work Is,” by Philip Levine, and her own poem “To Gather Together.” Meitner’s books include “Useful Junk” and “Holy Moly Carry Me,” which won the 2018 National Jewish Book Award in Poetry. She is currently a Mandel Institute Cultural Leadership Program Fellow, and she’s the director of the M.F.A. program in creative writing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

David St. John joins Kevin Young to read “Picking Grapes in an Abandoned Vineyard,” by Larry Levis, and his own poem “The Shore.” St. John is the author of many poetry collections and the recipient of honors including the Rome Fellowship and an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the O. B. Hardison Prize from the Folger Shakespeare Library, and the George Drury Smith Award from Beyond Baroque. He’s also the editor of “Swirl & Vortex,” a volume of collected poems by the late Larry Levis, forthcoming in 2026.

Edward Hirsch joins Kevin Young to read, “96 Vandam,” by Gerald Stern, and his own poem “Man on a Fire Escape.” Hirsch's honors include a MacArthur Fellowship, a National Book Critics Circle Award, the Pablo Neruda International Presidential Medal of Honor, and a National Jewish Book Award.