Episode description

If your home were a museum — and they all are, in a way — what would the contents of your refrigerator say about you and those you live with? In his poem “Refrigerator, 1957,” Thomas Lux opens the door to his childhood appliance and oh, does a three-quarters full jar of maraschino cherries speak volumes. 

Thomas Lux was an American poet and professor. He was the author of several collections of poetry, including To the Left of Time (Ecco, 2016), Child Made of Sand (Houghton Mifflin, 2012), God Particles (Houghton Mifflin, 2008), and New and Selected Poems of Thomas Lux: 1975-1995 (Ecco Press, 1999). Lux taught for many years at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he held the Bourne Chair in Poetry and directed the McEver Visiting Writers Program.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

We’re pleased to offer Thomas Lux’s poem, and invite you to read Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound book, or listen back to all our episodes.