Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 185 with Jessica Grose, Stephen Metcalf, Meghan O’Rourke, and Dana Stevens by clicking the arrow on the audio player below:

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In this week's Gabfest, our critics are joined by Slate’s Meghan O’Rourke to discuss the poetry and politics of the late Adrienne Rich. Next, they are joined by Jessica Grose to discuss her latest Slate article tracing two mysterious deaths in Yellowstone National Park. Finally, Meghan O’Rourke sticks around to gab about Benedict Carey’s piece in the New York Times, “Where Have All the Neurotics Gone?”

Here are some links to the things we discussed this week:

Adrienne Rich’s Of Woman Born and Diving Into the Wreck.
Slate’s Meghan O’Rourke on the poems and politics of Adrienne Rich.
Jessica Grose’s piece in Slate on grizzly bear attacks.
The official website of Yellowstone National Park.
Benedict Carey’s article “Where Have All the Neurotics Gone” in the New York Times.

The Culture Gabfest weekly endorsements:

Dana’s pick: Dog Ear’s Book Barn near the border of Bennington, Vt. and Babette Deutsch's Poetry Handbook

Meghan’s pick: Adrienne Rich’s Of Woman Born

Stephen’s pick:  The young adult book Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Famer and Freeman Dyson’s review of Physics on the Fringe: Smoke Rings, Circlons and Alternative Theories of Everything in the New York Review of Books

Outro: The Cure’s “Charlotte Sometimes”

You can email us at culturefest@slate.com.

This podcast was produced by Jesse Baker.

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