Episode #072 Private Property - Jenny Xie

Connor and Jack explore Jenny Xie's poem "Private Property" from her National Book Award finalist collection, Eye Level. They cram into the poem's crammed subway car—probably the 4 uptown—and think through how it engages with bodies, beautiful "r" sounds, and of course, late capitalism.

Learn more about Xie here: http://www.jennymxie.com/

Order her book here: https://www.graywolfpress.org/books/eye-level

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Private Property

By: Jenny Xie

Exhaustion slides from the body through the lips first. The invisible are flush with it, they drowse on blue subway seats. Heads bowed, yes, but to what. This island of concrete and glass tied by rough hands. The smell of this body among other bodies. Negatives of another’s pleasure. All of us living on loan—yet only some grasp the arrangement. Those shuttled back and forth, drifting to other far places. Underground, the window is also a mirror. It reflects sleep chasing bodies back into the borderless empire of the interior.