In this first part of a two-part episode, we speak with Stephanie Burt, a poet, a literary critic, and a professor of English at Harvard University. A recipient of a 2016 Guggenheim Fellowship, she’s the author of many books, including her volume of poems, We Are Mermaids; her award-winning anthology of post-Stonewall queer poetry, Super Gay Poems; and her just-out Taylor’s Version: The Poetic and Musical Genius of Taylor Swift. The New York Times called Burt “one of the most influential poetry critics of her generation.”  Stephanie tells us about how she first encountered Sarah’s poems and why they stand out as the work of a distinctive and major writer.  She also reads and discusses her gateway poem, “A Lesson in a Picture.”  



Interview date: 26 September 2025

In this first part of a two-part episode, we speak with Stephanie Burt, a poet, a literary critic, and a professor of English at Harvard University. A recipient of a 2016 Guggenheim Fellowship, she’s the author of many books, including her volume of poems, We Are Mermaids; her award-winning anthology of post-Stonewall queer poetry, Super Gay Poems; and her just-out Taylor’s Version: The Poetic and Musical Genius of Taylor Swift. The New York Times called Burt “one of the most influential poetry critics of her generation.” Stephanie tells us about how she first encountered Sarah’s poems and why they stand out as the work of a distinctive and major writer. She also reads and discusses her gateway poem, “A Lesson in a Picture.” Interview date: 26 September 2025

In this first part of a two-part episode, we speak with Stephanie Burt, a poet, a literary critic, and a professor of English at Harvard University. A recipient of a 2016 Guggenheim Fellowship, she’s the author of many books, including her volume of poems, We Are Mermaids; her award-winning anthology of post-Stonewall queer poetry, Super Gay Poems; and her just-out Taylor’s Version: The Poetic and Musical Genius of Taylor Swift. The New York Times called Burt “one of the most influential poetry critics of her generation.”&nbsp; Stephanie tells us about how she first encountered Sarah’s poems and why they stand out as the work of a distinctive and major writer.&nbsp; She also reads and discusses her gateway poem, “A Lesson in a Picture.” &nbsp;



Interview date: 26 September 2025

Men Tell Me to Smile

Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt (1836-1919) was a popular, prolific, and well-regarded poet during her lifetime, writing more than 600 poems across more than half a century. Her earliest work, composed when she was still the unmarried Kentucky teenager Sallie M. Bryan, was published by the most influential newspaper editors in the nation. She married Ohio poet John James Piatt in 1861. In the tumultuous decades ahead, her work met with robust national and transatlantic acclaim. She fell into obscurity upon her death and was rediscovered only in the 1990s, by numerous scholars working independently of one another. Since that time, she has quickly gained stature as a major artist, now standing at the brink of the American canon. In this collection of interviews, scholars who contributed to Piatt’s rediscovery tell their stories about how they came to “find” Piatt—and why she merits status as one of America’s great authors.

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Men Tell Me to Smile

Men Tell Me to Smile

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