Kevin Young

speaker

1,056 appearances 8 recordings 4 series first heard Feb 2026 last heard 26 Aug

Kevin Young’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 8 in all, peaking in Apr 2026 with 2.

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The New Yorker: Poetry · Julia Alvarez Reads Judy Page Heitzman · 27 May 2026 podcast

The older speaker, I think, knows better in some ways, but also is immersing us into this memory, which I think is really beautiful.

Yes.

Yeah, and she enacts it in that way.

The towering height, of course, is a child's view of the tetherball courts.

But I love how you're pointing out the tense of the poem.

And it's also a kind of tension between the present and the past.

And using present tense kind of brings that to life.

I think simplicity is almost the hardest thing.

And I wonder what you think.

Beautifully said.

More from my conversation with Julia Alvarez after the break.

Julia, welcome back.

Thank you.

Now, in our February 2nd, 2026 issue, The New Yorker published your poem, Mommy at Her Vanity, which you'll read for us in a moment.

Is there anything you want to say before we hear it?

Right.

Why don't we hear the poem?

Here's Julia Alvarez reading her poem, Mommy and Her Vanity.

That was Mommy at Her Vanity by Julia Alvarez.

You know, we were talking a bit about memory before, and this poem is so full of memory and this sort of surge of it.

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