Crucial Handshakes (A celebration of issues 233 and 234)

This bonus episode revisits and remixes the virtual launch events for Paris Review issues 233 and 234, summer and fall 2020—no Zoom room required! First, Eloghosa Osunde reads the opening of her story “Good Boy”; next, Aracelis Girmay reads Lucille Clifton’s “Poem to My Yellow Coat”; then Lydia Davis shares her short piece “The Left Hand”; translator Patricio Ferrari recites “Crater of the Beginning” by Portuguese poet Antonio Osorio; Jamel Brinkley reads an excerpt from his story “Witness”; Rabih Alameddine reads from his story “The July War”; Emma Hine presents her poem “Cassandra”; and the episode concludes with Girmay’s awe-filled recollection of her visit to Clifton’s archive, plus her rendition of Clifton’s poem “Bouquet.”