{"podcast":{"title":"Private Life: A New York Review Podcast","slug":"private-life-a-new-york-review-podcast-7689958","podcast_index_feed_id":7689958,"rss_url":"https://feeds.transistor.fm/private-life","website_url":"https://www.nybooks.com","image_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/gnQ-tYKkQUrf9KBbX-Lv2CitGexgv0Aij1cs3L5VRhY/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:1400/h:1400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS8wODA5/ZGRiYmU0NTg3OTY0/Y2RkNDQzMTJhZjU3/NWUyZS5wbmc.jpg","author":"New York Review Podcasts","episode_count":22,"summary":"Private Life is a podcast from The New York Review, hosted by contributor Jarrett Earnest. Each episode offers intimate, in-depth conversations with distinguished voices from across the literary landscape—about their lives, their work, and the ideas that shape both. Along the way, they revisit pieces from the The New York Review of Books's robust sixty-year archive (some episodes of the podcast will feature newly recorded readings of these classic essays) to situate arguments within contemporary culture. The show also includes discussions of titles from our book publishing arm, New York Review Books, featuring talks with translator Mark Polizzotti on Andre Breton's surrealist masterpiece Nadja and musician Richard Hell on the re-issue of his novel Godlike. Other early episodes find Joyce Carol Oates ruminating on true crime, while Darryl Pinckney opens up about the perils of memoir and his formative friendship with essayist Elizabeth Hardwick. Private Life is a personable, expansive invitation for longtime subscribers and a new generation of readers alike to connect with the past, present and future of The New York Review.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-09T00:19:47.670598+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/private-life-a-new-york-review-podcast-7689958"},"episode":{"title":"“Chronicles of Love and Loss“ by Helen Vendler","slug":"chronicles-of-love-and-loss-by-helen-vendler","published_at":"2026-06-24T12:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/private-life-a-new-york-review-podcast-7689958/chronicles-of-love-and-loss-by-helen-vendler","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/private-life-a-new-york-review-podcast-7689958","url":"https://share.transistor.fm/s/91bb5c8c","audio_url":"https://media.transistor.fm/91bb5c8c/7d02d780.mp3","summary":"In this episode of Private Life , Langdon Hammer reads Helen Vendler’s essay, “ Chronicles of Love and Loss ,” from the May 11, 1995, issue of The New York Review of Books . The essay reviews James Merill’s posthumous collection of poetry, A Scattering of Salts (1995), as well as his poem “The House Fly ,” published in the May 13, 1982, issue of the Review . Langdon Hammer is the Niel Gray Jr. Professor of English at Yale and the author of James Merrill: Life and Art . He has reviewed biography and poetry for the Review and has written about the poet Elizabeth Bishop. Helen Vendler was an academic and literary critic, known for her contemporary poetry criticism. She was the Arthur Kingsley Porter University Professor Emerita in the Department of English at Harvard. Vendler was a contributor to the Review for more than forty years. You can read “Chronicles of Love and Loss” with a subscription to The New York Review of Books , which in addition to twenty issues a year, gives you access to our full archive since 1963, searchable on our website.","meta_description":"In this episode of Private Life , Langdon Hammer reads Helen Vendler’s essay, “ Chronicles of Love and Loss ,” from the May 11, 1995, issue of The New Yor…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3110,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/private-life-a-new-york-review-podcast-7689958/episodes/chronicles-of-love-and-loss-by-helen-vendler/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/private-life-a-new-york-review-podcast-7689958/chronicles-of-love-and-loss-by-helen-vendler.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}