Nathan Mader

“At some point I started rereading The Duino Elegies aloud to myself as I walked in the woods near my apartment during the pandemic, and I eventually realised that I had the entire first elegy memorized. While metabolising this poem that dissolves our “too-sharp distinctions” between the living and dead has changed how I experience the world, I’d like to think it’s also opened up something in my poems. I hope to one day have all ten of the Elegies by heart.