First Things Podcast Disclosure in Modern Poetry (ft. Glenn Arbery)
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Apr 2, 2026 Glenn C. Arbery, a professor of English and former college president who wrote “Lyric as Disclosure,” discusses how poems reveal reality rather than just state facts. He explores Pound, Williams, Frost, Hughes, Dante, and the contrast between symbolic tradition and immediate poetic vision. Conversations touch on longing, small transformative moments, and whether a modern epic voice can emerge.
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Disclosure Versus Correctness
- Disclosure differs from correctness: it's a sudden bringing-into-presence that feels like opening a hidden gift.
- Glenn C. Arbery draws on Father Sokolowski to contrast verbal truth (2+2=4) with revelations like 666 that prompt probing and wonder.
Lyric Focused On Immediate Givenness
- Modern lyric often aims to show a thing as it is, privileging immediate givenness over symbolic explanation.
- Arbery uses Ezra Pound's "In a Station of the Metro" to show disclosure as apparition and instantaneous perception.
Lyric's Longing For Edenic Oneness
- The lyric longs for an Edenic oneness where boundaries vanish and things feel like origins.
- Arbery cites Louise Cowan and Rilke to show lyric's yearning for a garden of fulfillment that erases estrangement.
