Watch Jessica Laser Read “Kings” at the Paris Review Offices

On August 3, the poet Jessica Laser visited the offices of the Review in Chelsea and treated us to a reading of her poem “Kings,” which appears in our Summer issue. The poem, which our poetry editor Srikanth Reddy described as a “dreamy, autobiographical remembrance,” includes memories of a drinking game she used to play in high school on Lake Michigan, and is charged with eros:

… You never knew
whether it would be strip or not, so you always
considered wearing layers. It was summer.
Sometimes you’d get pretty naked
but it wasn’t pushy. You could take off
one sock at a time.

A perfect poem to read or listen to in the dog days of August, as summer flings might be coming to an end!

FROM “LAUREL NAKADATE AND MIKA ROTTENBERG,” A PORTFOLIO CURATED BY MARILYN MINTER, FROM ISSUE NO. 197, SUMMER 2011.