Episode 53: Carnegie Hall Rush Seats - Mary Karr

In this episode, Connor and Jack discuss Mary Karr's "Carnegie Hall Rush Seats." In the course of the conversation they also talk about big-R Romanticism, Calvinism, the Netflix program Chef's Table, and the quasi-mystical process behind the crafting of the world's finest classical instruments. Connor sticks up for the midwest, Jack's poetic preferences are laid bare, and a physical copy of the OED is consulted.

Read the poem below. More on Mary Karr, here.

Carnegie Hall Rush Seats By: Mary Karr

Whatever else the orchestra says, the cello insists, You’re dying. It speaks from the core

of the tree’s hacked-out heart, shaped and smoothed like a woman. Be glad you are not hard wood

yourself and can hear it. Every day the cello is taken into someone’s arms, taken between

spread legs and lured into its shivering. The arm saws and saws and all the sacred cries of saints

and demons issue from the carved cleft holes. Like all of us, it aches, sending up moans from the pit we balance on the edge of.