{"id":144106,"date":"2020-04-03T11:27:31","date_gmt":"2020-04-03T15:27:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=144106"},"modified":"2020-04-03T11:48:05","modified_gmt":"2020-04-03T15:48:05","slug":"poets-on-couches-lynn-melnick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/04\/03\/poets-on-couches-lynn-melnick\/","title":{"rendered":"Poets on Couches: Lynn Melnick"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/lynn-melnick2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-144107\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/lynn-melnick2-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/lynn-melnick2-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/lynn-melnick2-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/lynn-melnick2-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>In this series of videograms, poets read and discuss the poems getting them through these strange times\u2014broadcasting straight from their couches to yours. These readings bring intimacy into our spaces of isolation, both through the affinity of poetry and through the warmth of being able to speak to each other across the distances.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/e52ryHiedzA\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/poetry\/2505\/lament-sharon-olds\">Lament<\/a>\u201d<br \/>\nby Sharon Olds<br \/>\n<em>Issue no. 108 (Fall 1988)<\/em><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Finally someone just drops it and breaks it<br \/>\nlike a mercy killing, the cow butter dish,<br \/>\nit cracks easily into five pieces,<br \/>\nopening like an earthenware flower on the floor:<br \/>\na crescent of furrowed terracotta, a<br \/>\ndry cold bisque side, a<br \/>\nrogue shard, the cow herself broken<br \/>\nfree, upside-down, hollow-muscular inner curves of her body,<br \/>\nslim elliptical hole of her throat leading<br \/>\ninto the darkness inside her head.<br \/>\nLong, drawn-out ending of my motherhood,<br \/>\nthese kids I see less and less\u2014<br \/>\nbetter to smash some china like the end of a<br \/>\nlove-affair. I take her in my hand,<br \/>\nconvex flanks fitting my palm,<br \/>\nthumb and forefinger holding her neck at the<br \/>\ncarotids, kiss her mild<br \/>\ndumb forehead, look into her empty<br \/>\nshape smooth and chambered as a woman\u2019s sex,<br \/>\nthe way God might have sat on the bank<br \/>\nfirst shaping the clay.<br \/>\nEven on the hottest day if you<br \/>\nsoaked her in cold water in the morning and<br \/>\nset her on the dish she would keep the butter<br \/>\ncool till night in the dark of her body,<br \/>\nfresh, and soft.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Lynn Melnick is the author of the three poetry collections, most recently <\/em>Refusenik<em>, forthcoming from YesYes Books in 2021. <\/em>I\u2019ve Had to Think Up a Way to Survive<em>, a book about Dolly Parton that is also a bit of a memoir, is forthcoming from University of Texas Press in 2022.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lynn Melnick reads a Sharon Olds poem about finding sensuality in unlikely places. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1948,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62807],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-144106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poets-on-couches"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Poets on Couches: Lynn Melnick by Lynn Melnick<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"April 3, 2020 \u2013 Lynn Melnick reads a Sharon Olds poem about finding sensuality in unlikely places.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/04\/03\/poets-on-couches-lynn-melnick\/\" 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