Kevin Young

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.

But I love how you point out the things you couldn't have known at the time, but also they're there.