The History of Literature 787 Why Poetry with Matthew Zapruder Encore
Mar 26, 2026
Matthew Zapruder, poet, essayist, and professor known for Why Poetry and editing the NYT Magazine poetry page, explores why poetry feels inaccessible and how to reclaim it. He recounts pivotal readings, discusses Auden and Keats, and teases language as a machine for feeling. Short riffs on craft, form, and thinkers like Wittgenstein and Valéry round out the conversation.
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Teaching Poetry Can Kill Immediate Meaning
- Matthew Zapruder argues the way people are taught to read poetry often prevents enjoyment by making readers doubt that words mean what they appear to mean.
- He traces this to school teaching that frames poetic language as inherently coded, causing readers to search for hidden codes instead of engaging with the poem directly.
High School Auden Moment Sparked His Love Of Syntax
- Zapruder recounts first encountering Auden in high school and geeking out over inverted syntax like “About suffering they were never wrong.”
- That early syntactic thrill led him to notice how phrasing can act like a foreign-language attraction to word order.
Focus On The Poem's Experience Not A Single Message
- Do drop the assumption that a poem's value is only its big message and focus on the reading experience and how the poem moves your thinking.
- Zapruder recommends shifting attention from content extraction to the poem's effects on the reader over the course of reading.
