Houghton Mifflin Poetry Podcast: The Poetic Voice

This episode features Alan Shapiro reading from and discussing his collection Tantalus in Love, recently released in paperback. A work full of life, jealousy, lust, and romantic abandon, Tantalus in Love reinvents myth and symbol in lyrical portraits of astounding resonance. The collection begins with the sorrow of a disintegrating marriage, with its anger and suspicion, its hurt and rage, but moves on to celebrate the resilience of love after loss and the awakening glory of an amorous middle age. Alan Shapiro is the author of eight acclaimed books of poetry. He has received the Kingsley Tufts Award and the Los Angeles Times prize for poetry, among other honors. His memoir, The Last Happy Occasion, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He teaches at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.