I found this poem while I was seeing my dad through his death. I thought of it a lot during those awful months. I thought about what I needed to apologize for. I thought about what he needed to apologize for. I thought how no fish would ever make it up between us--but how right Ellen Bass was to make it a meal, an apology, a bony fish no one wants but everyone needs.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I explore Ellen Bass's poem "How To Apologize," just recently published in THE NEW YORKER. This work hit me where I live. And its construction is nothing short of genius.

How can something published in 1968 be so 2021?

It can because it's a lyric poem by Bernadette Mayer, a poet whose work may well define what I think is great about lyric poetry.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I take a look at this fabulous and very adult sonnet by one of the best American poets working still today.

Rage? You bet! But in sonnet form.

I'm back from a long hiatus. I didn't mean to go on one. My dad died. Or as I keep saying, he went over a cliff and took me with him.

I wanted to record this podcast episode because it's about a poem I said over and over to myself this summer as I helped him die. It's also one of the last things I ever said to him. I hope you'll find it as moving and lasting as I did. It sustained me. I couldn't ask Dickinson for any more. I couldn't ask lyric poetry for any more.