In Episode 16 of Multi-Verse, Devon Walker-Figueroa reads her poem “Private Lessons,” in which a dying man determines that his young pupil must become a prima ballerina, and chats with host Evangeline Riddiford Graham about the uses of silence, breaking Dante’s rhyme scheme, and what it means to be haunted by lessons long since over.
“What use?” her dancer wonders, “in maligning his methods now?”
This is not your grandfather’s ghost story.
Devon Walker-Figueroa’s debut poetry collection is Philomath (Milkweed Editions, 2021).
Multi-Verse is a poetry podcast hosted and produced by Evangeline Riddiford Graham. To hear more poets share and discuss the poems they don’t usually read aloud, subscribe for free on Substack, Soundcloud, Apple, Spotify, or the Multi-Verse website.
![A lantern slideshows four overlapping illustrations of the Earth depicting its tilt at different time periods in the past, present and future. Dates represented are 13000 BC, 5544 BC, 1921 AD, 2296AD. Handwritten in blue ink at bottom left corner of plate is the text 'G53 CLW [illegible] Aug '22'.](https://i0.wp.com/publicseminar.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Wragge_Earth.jpg?fit=768%2C749&ssl=1)
