On Air Fest

The Paris Review: An Audio Odyssey

Episode Summary

In this rare stage session recorded live at On Air Fest, new and archival stories, poems, and interviews from the pages of The Paris Review filled the air, accompanied by live scoring and performed by a cast of authors and actors.

Episode Notes

Listen as the pages of The Paris Review come to life. Hear excerpts of an interview with Toni Morrison live scored by musicians, then Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Vijay Seshadri reads his poem “Ailanthus”; actor Quincy Tyler Bernstine reads “A Story for Your Daughters, A Story for Your Sons” by Rebecca Makkai; finally, Emily Wells provides live scoring for Bill Callahan's rendition of Adrienne Rich’s poem “A Tree.” Executive producers John DeLore, Emily Nemens, and Brendan Francis Newnam guide the performance.

“The Tree” excerpted from Collected Poems: 1950-2012 © 2016 by the Adrienne Rich Literary Trust. Used with permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.