Vol. 114
A NEW SEASON OF GREAT WRITERS +
HOW TO READ A POEM
BY JEAN HANFF KORELITZ
It’s always exciting when we unveil the new season of BOOKTHEWRITER books and authors! Fall ‘26 is going to be particularly exciting, with new novels from Maria Semple (WHERE’D YOU GO, BERNADETTE), Jessica Knoll (LUCKIEST GIRL ALIVE, BRIGHT YOUNG WOMEN), John Searles (HELP FOR THE HAUNTED), Matthew Pearl (THE DANTE CLUB), Katherine Nouri Hughes (THE MAPMAKER’S DAUGHTER) and Priya Parmar (VANESSA AND HER SISTER). Also: a spellbinding new work of non-fiction from Patrick Radden Keefe (author of EMPIRE OF PAIN and SAY NOTHING), a first memoir from bestselling novelist Jane Green and a first novel from Canwen Xu, an enthralling new novel from Israeli novelist Noa Yedlin, a biography of Ethel Kennedy by her daughter, Kerry Kennedy, and memoirs from writer and priest James Martin and Hamilton producer Jeffrey Seller.
I mean: have we left anything out? Oh, yes:
HOW TO READ A POEM
with Paul Muldoon
Since 2023, Pulitzer Prizewinning poet and former Poetry Editor of The New Yorker Paul Muldoon has led his extraordinary “How to Read a Poem” discussions at literary festivals and universities all over the world. At these very special gatherings, participants meet to discuss poems published only that week in literary journals and magazines, not just to glean their individual meanings but to reflect on where poetry as an art form has been – and where it’s going.
For nearly forty years, Paul Muldoon has been Howard G. B. Clark Professor at Princeton, teaching creative writing, Irish literature, songwriting and translation. He served as Oxford Professor of Poetry from 1999 to 2004 and Ireland Professor of Poetry from 2022 to 2025. He has taught at Cambridge University, University of St. Andrews, University of East Anglia, and Lancaster University. His fifteen major collections of poetry, published in America by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, include the Pulitzer Prizewinning MOY SAND AND GRAVEL and JOY IN SERVICE ON RUE TAGORE, a New York Times Notable Book of 2024. He is the editor of many anthologies of poetry, including, most recently, SCANTY PLOT OF GROUND: A BOOK OF SONNETS.
Poems for discussion will be distributed at the session. No preparation or knowledge of poetry is necessary. The only prerequisite? An open mind.
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Jean Hanff Korelitz is the author of nine novels, including THE SEQUEL, THE LATECOMER and THE PLOT (the latter two in development for film or limited series), YOU SHOULD HAVE KNOWN (adapted as HBO’s 2020 limited series, THE UNDOING, by David E. Kelley and starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant) and ADMISSION (basis for the 2013 film starring Tina Fey). THE PLOT was featured on The Tonight Show as the Fallon Summer Reads 2021 pick. Her work has been translated into 30 languages. She lives in New York City.
Links:
HOW TO READ A POEM with Paul Muldoon