Angie Estes and Stephanie Burt Unbound

Angie Estes is an acclaimed American poet whose work is celebrated for its luminous language, intricate musicality, and remarkable ability to weave together art, history, memory, and desire. Across more than three decades, her poetry has explored the ways beauty, spirituality, and human experience intersect, creating poems that feel at once intellectually expansive and deeply intimate. She is the author of numerous collections, including The Uses of Passion, Voice-Over, Tryst, Chez Nous, and Last Day on Earth in the Eternal City, and her work has earned widespread recognition, including the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, Audre Lorde Prize, and fellowships from organizations such as the National Endowment for the Arts. Joining her for this conversation is celebrated poet, critic, and scholar Stephanie Burt, whose thoughtful introduction frames The Swallows Come Out: Selected Poems, 1995–2025 and offers readers a rich perspective on Estes's extraordinary body of work.This week on Authors Unbound, we sit down with Angie Estes and Stephanie Burt to celebrate the release of The Swallows Come Out: Selected Poems, 1995–2025. Together, they reflect on the process of assembling a selected collection that spans thirty years of writing, uncovering unexpected continuities across Estes's work and the themes that have quietly shaped her poetry from the beginning. Their conversation explores the transformative influence of visual art, medieval architecture, travel, and fellow poet Jorie Graham, as well as the ways love, language, and spiritual longing evolve across a lifetime of writing. Along the way, Estes reads several poems from throughout the collection, including "St. Francis Preaching to the Birds," "Rhapsody," "You Had Me at Premier Cru," and the title poem, while Burt reflects on the beauty of Estes's metaphors, her distinctive use of simile, and the remarkable way her poems invite readers to discover unexpected connections between the sacred and the everyday. The episode concludes with a glimpse at new work from Burt and a thoughtful discussion about how a selected collection becomes not simply a retrospective, but a new portrait of a writer's creative life.Don't miss this rich conversation exploring poetry, art, memory, and the enduring power of language.This is Angie Estes and Stephanie Burt Unbound.Purchase your copy of The Swallows Come Out: Selected Poems, 1995–2025 directly from Unbound Edition Press.For more from Unbound Edition Press, visit us at https://unboundedition.com.