You cannot fact check poetry

You cannot fact check poetry

From Field of Streams by Janeen McCrae

November 18, 2025 · 15 min

About this episode

This episode discusses the joy of poetry and the implications of fact checking in literary works.

If all poetry had to be fact checked before it got published, there would be no joy. The David Sedaris interview with Mike Birbiglia where he talks about The New Yorker fact checking his writing can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJtgocLVa0A All poems referenced within this piece are listed in the footnotes here if you want to go read some great poems! https://www.jumpinthestream.com/you-cannot-fact-check-poetry/ This is an audio reading of that post “You cannot fa...

People in this episode

Host: Janeen McCrae

Topics covered

  • poetry
  • fact checking
  • art
  • writing
  • literature

Keywords

  • poetry
  • fact checking
  • David Sedaris
  • Mike Birbiglia
  • The New Yorker

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: The New Yorker

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