Culture
NFL Power Rankings Week 7: How good are Ravens, Lions? Plus more big questions
We’re a third of the way through the NFL season, and we have some answers about some teams.
The Power Rankings still have some questions, though. We’re going to look at one big one for every team in this week’s rankings. These may not be the most critical queries, but we think they’re the most interesting.
Your question might be: How far did the ultra-impressive Ravens and Lions move up? Please read on.
Last week: 1
Sunday: Bye
One Big Question: Can Sam Darnold keep it up?
Everyone is waiting for the Vikings quarterback to turn into a pumpkin. He has started fast before, they say, and they’re right. Darnold had 1,346 passing yards in Weeks 1 through 6 of the 2018 season with the Jets. The difference? Darnold had nine passing touchdowns and seven interceptions to start that season. This year, Darnold has 11 touchdowns and four interceptions. In three of the last four seasons that Kevin O’Connell has been head coach or offensive coordinator for a team, that team has been top 10 in the league in scoring. The Vikings are sixth at the moment (27.80 ppg).
Up next: vs. Detroit Lions, Sunday, 1 p.m. ET
GO DEEPER
Deshaun Watson and a Browns escape plan (once they finally admit it’s over): Sando’s Pick Six
2. Baltimore Ravens (4-2)
Last week: 3
Sunday: Beat Washington Commanders 30-23
One Big Question: Which Raven is the MVP frontrunner?
That’s how good Baltimore’s offense is right now. Lamar Jackson is playing better than he was last season when he won the MVP award (second in the league in EPA per dropback), but Derrick Henry has been almost as good. A running back obviously will not win the league’s MVP award (it hasn’t happened since Adrian Peterson in 2012), but Henry’s first six games have been phenomenal. He’s averaging 117.3 yards per game, which would stand as the second-best rushing total for a season in the last 10 years, behind only his own 2020 season, according to TruMedia.
Up next: at Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Monday, 8:15 p.m. ET
GO DEEPER
Do Ravens have NFL’s best offense? They made a case in win over Commanders
3. Detroit Lions (4-1)
Last week: 6
Sunday: Beat Dallas Cowboys 47-9
One Big Question: Was Sunday a good day or a bad day?
The Lions were the most impressive team in the league against the Cowboys, but they lost the NFL’s sack leader when Aidan Hutchinson suffered a broken leg. Hutchinson had 7 1/2 sacks and led all defensive linemen with a 25 percent pressure rate at the time of the injury. Humiliating Dallas while Jared Goff posted a 153.8 passer rating Sunday felt good, but a season with the highest expectations just got tougher.
Up next: at Minnesota Vikings, Sunday, 1 p.m. ET
Last week: 2
Sunday: Bye
One Big Question: Will they trade for a wide receiver?
JuJu Smith-Schuster is the most proven wide receiver on the roster. He hasn’t had a 1,000-yard season since 2018, and he has only nine catches this season. Rookie Xavier Worthy, the leading active wide receiver (12 catches, 179 yards), will get better, but this team is trying to three-peat. It can’t afford to stand pat at this position, can it? The Chiefs are unlikely to get into the Davante Adams sweepstakes, so Browns wide receiver Amari Cooper looks like the most attractive option.
Up next: at San Francisco 49ers, Sunday, 4:25 p.m. ET
Texans wide receiver Tank Dell will be asked to do more with Nico Collins out with an injury. (Brian Fluharty / Imagn Images)
Last week: 4
Sunday: Beat New England Patriots 41-21
One Big Question: Can Tank Dell step up?
Sunday was a good start but just a start. Dell caught seven passes for 57 yards against the Patriots, his highest catch total and second-highest yardage total of the season. The first five games had been rough for the second-year wide receiver. His EPA per target is down from .46 last year to .08 this year, according to TruMedia, but with Nico Collins now on injured reserve, Dell needs to return to form. Houston leads the AFC South by two games, and the Texans need to start planning for the playoffs. They’ll need Dell in peak form for that even when Collins returns.
Up next: at Green Bay Packers, Sunday, 1 p.m. ET
6. Washington Commanders (4-2)
Last week: 5
Sunday: Lost to Baltimore Ravens 30-23
One Big Question: Is this a new-and-improved Kliff Kingsbury?
Washington leads the league in EPA per play (.20) and is scoring on 61.82 percent of its drives, which is the highest rate in the NFL since at least the 1999 season, according to TruMedia. Kingsbury, the Commanders’ offensive coordinator, coached the Arizona Cardinals from 2019 to 2022 and those teams never scored on more than 45 percent of their drives. Kingsbury’s 2021 team started 10-2 before defenses figured things out, and Arizona lost five of its last six (including its wild-card round loss). Will he have a counterpunch this season?
Up next: vs. Carolina Panthers, Sunday, 4:05 p.m. ET
GO DEEPER
For Jayden Daniels’ Commanders, a loss in Baltimore, but not a setback
7. Green Bay Packers (4-2)
Last week: 8
Sunday: Beat Arizona Cardinals 34-13
One Big Question: Are we sleeping on this team?
Green Bay has won four of its last five with its only loss coming by two points to the No. 1 team on this list. The Packers are fourth in the league in point differential (plus 41) and looked really good with wide receivers Christian Watson and Romeo Doubs back in the lineup (three touchdowns combined). The knock at this point would be that their wins have come against the Colts, Titans, Rams and Cardinals.
Up next: vs. Houston Texans, Sunday, 1 p.m. ET
Last week: 7
Monday: Beat New York Jets 23-20
One Big Question: When will Josh Allen throw his first interception?
It’s frankly remarkable given Allen’s free-wheeling style that he hasn’t already. He had at least two by Week 7 in each of the first six years of his career, and he averaged 4.8 in Weeks 1-6 in those seasons. But he hasn’t thrown a pick this year. Some of it is luck. Allen has made five interception-worthy throws, according to FTNFantasy’s tracking. But most of it is because he’s playing really good football. Allen, who has 10 touchdown passes, is third in the league in EPA per dropback (.23).
Up next: vs. Tennessee Titans, Sunday, 1 p.m. ET
After a slow start, Bijan Robinson and the Falcons offense are flying. (Jim Dedmon / Imagn Images)
Last week: 10
Sunday: Beat Carolina Panthers 38-20
One Big Question: Are the Falcons good?
There’s some evidence they are. The Falcons have won three straight NFC South games. On Sunday, they rushed for 198 yards one week after Kirk Cousins set the franchise record for passing yards with 509. Bijan Robinson, Drake London and Kyle Pitts all made significant contributions against Carolina. However, Atlanta had a negative point differential before beating the reeling Panthers by 18 points. The Falcons’ margin of victory was their second-highest since the end of 2020, and the next two weeks will provide big tests (Seattle and then Tampa Bay for the second time this season).
Up next: vs. Seattle Seahawks, Sunday, 1 p.m. ET
GO DEEPER
How the Falcons achieved ‘the best feeling there is’ by running over the Panthers
10. San Francisco 49ers (3-3)
Last week: 14
Thursday: Beat Seattle Seahawks 36-24
One Big Question: Will Christian McCaffrey play this season?
The 49ers could have opened the running back’s window to return from IR this week. They did not. That’s not an encouraging sign. An NFL Network report last week suggested the 49ers are targeting Week 10 for the running back’s return, but that sounded more hopeful than anything. Ricky Pearsall, who was shot six weeks ago, likely will play sooner than McCaffrey, who is suffering from Achilles tendinitis. Jordan Mason is second in the league in rushing (609 yards) filling in for McCaffrey, but he doesn’t provide the same headaches for opponents.
Up next: vs. Kansas City Chiefs, Sunday, 4:25 p.m. ET
11. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (4-2)
Last week: 11
Sunday: Beat New Orleans Saints 51-27
One Big Question: What will Mike Evans’ career numbers be?
Evans is off to a slow start by his standards (28th in the league with 310 yards), but with this offense, he could catch fire at any time. Evans, who is in his 11th year, is 30th all time in receiving yards with 11,990, and Larry Fitzgerald’s 17,492 which is second all time, feels very reachable for the 31-year-old Evans. The Bucs, who had 594 yards against the Saints, are tied for second in the league in scoring (29.7 ppg).
Up next: vs. Baltimore Ravens, Monday, 8:15 p.m. ET
Last week: 12
Sunday: Beat Denver Broncos 23-16
One Big Question: Is the defense really this good?
The Chargers lead the league in points allowed (13.2), but that might be propped up by the schedule (four of their five opponents are bottom 12 in the league in scoring), the turnover margin (plus-7, which ranks tied for second in the league) and an offense that plays keep-away (seventh in time of possession). The Broncos gained 6 yards per play on Sunday, but the Chargers played their plodding game, getting 96 yards out of J.K. Dobbins and holding on to the ball for more than 37 minutes.
Up next: at Arizona Cardinals, Monday, 9 p.m. ET
GO DEEPER
Justin Herbert is getting healthier, and that is great news for the Chargers
Last week: 17
Sunday: Beat Jacksonville Jaguars 35-16
One Big Question: When is Cole Kmet Day in Chicago?
Sure, Caleb Williams keeps getting better. The rookie quarterback had a career-high four touchdown passes and his second-best passer rating (124.4), but how often do we get to talk about Cole Kmet? The fifth-year tight end had five catches for 70 yards and two touchdowns and was perfect as the team’s emergency long snapper Sunday in London after regular Scott Daly was injured. In the second quarter, Kmet caught a 31-yard touchdown pass and then made his first NFL long snap on the extra point. Kmet’s 289 receiving yards are the third most by a tight end this season.
Up next: Bye
.@ColeKmet scored the touchdown, then came in as the emergency long snapper on the PAT.
Legend.
📺: #JAXvsCHI on NFL Network
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/PQ22R2HLrc— NFL (@NFL) October 13, 2024
Last week: 15
Sunday: Beat Las Vegas Raiders 32-13
One Big Question: Why would they start Russell Wilson?
Justin Fields has been an average quarterback this season, and there has not been much evidence of late that Wilson can reach that level. Fields is 17th in the league in EPA per dropback (.04). That’s the best mark of his four-year career, and the first time he’s been in positive numbers, and he’s thrown only one interception (versus five touchdown passes). On top of that, he’s basically half of the Steelers’ run game with 231 yards and five touchdowns on the ground. At age 35, Wilson can no longer provide that.
Up next: vs. New York Jets, Sunday, 8:20 p.m. ET
GO DEEPER
Steelers followed their blueprint vs. Raiders, but the elephant in the room remains
15. Seattle Seahawks (3-3)
Last week: 13
Thursday: Lost to San Francisco 49ers 36-24
One Big Question: Where’d Kenneth Walker go?
The Seahawks are last in the league in percentage of plays running the ball (31.6). That’s the second-lowest percentage for any team in the last 20 years. Quarterback Geno Smith is playing good football (16th in EPA per dropback), but Walker needs the ball more. After carrying 20 times in Seattle’s season-opening win, Walker has averaged 10 carries per game. Despite this and missing two games because of injury, he’s tied for fifth in the league in rushing touchdowns with five.
Up next: at Atlanta Falcons, Sunday, 1 p.m. ET
16. Dallas Cowboys (3-3)
Last week: 9
Sunday: Lost to Detroit Lions 47-9
One Big Question: Who’s America’s Team now?
The Cowboys have officially forfeited the title. The Lions didn’t take them seriously on Sunday (three offensive linemen ran receiving routes) and no one else should either. Dallas is 25th in point margin (minus-42 points), 30th in points allowed per game (28), last in rushing yards (463) and last in rushing defense EPA (minus-6.2). Owner/GM Jerry Jones hasn’t fired a coach midseason since 2010, but he can’t like being embarrassed like he was Sunday.
Up next: Bye
Last week: 22
Sunday: Beat New York Giants 17-7
One Big Question: Was the 1-4 hole too deep?
The Athletic’s playoff projections give the Bengals a 40 percent chance to make the postseason, which is not bad for a team that started 0-3 and 1-4. The Bengals play the Browns, Eagles and Raiders in the next three weeks, so it’s entirely possible they could have a winning record by early November. The way Joe Burrow and this offense are playing, it seems reasonable for this team to go on a run. Burrow has 12 passing touchdowns and only two interceptions, and the Bengals are fourth in the league in EPA per play (.12) and points per drive (2.67).
Up next: at Cleveland Browns, Sunday, 1 p.m. ET
GO DEEPER
Bengals defense came in waves to beat Giants and change the conversation
18. Philadelphia Eagles (3-2)
Last week: 18
Sunday: Beat Cleveland Browns 20-16
One Big Question: What’s going on with Nick Sirianni?
The Eagles head coach showed up after the bye week with a shaved head, chirped at his home fans late in the game and then showed up for the postgame news conference with his three young children in tow. Sirianni doesn’t call the offense or defense for the Eagles, so if his only contribution is this kind of stuff, will Philly make a change? The Eagles are 21st in the league in point differential (minus-6) despite having a winning record.
Up next: at New York Giants, Sunday, 1 p.m. ET
Nick Sirianni with a long answer on why he brought his kids to the podium
Gets emotional talking about how much football means to him and his family pic.twitter.com/OmMqmGLWDT
— Eliot Shorr-Parks (@EliotShorrParks) October 13, 2024
19. Denver Broncos (3-3)
Last week: 19
Sunday: Lost to Los Angeles Chargers 23-16
One Big Question: Are defense and special teams enough?
Rookie quarterback Bo Nix has shown some flashes, but he is 30th in the league in passer rating (73.7), 31st in EPA per dropback (minus-.18) and has thrown five interceptions. The Broncos are 29th in the league in offensive EPA per play (minus-.17) and average yards per drive (22.8). The Broncos are playing .500 football because of a defense that is fourth in the league in defensive EPA per play (.16) and fifth in special teams EPA (16.75).
Up next: at New Orleans Saints, Thursday, 8:15 p.m. ET
20. Indianapolis Colts (3-3)
Last week: 25
Sunday: Beat Tennessee Titans 20-17
One Big Question: What do you do with Anthony Richardson?
The second-year quarterback practiced all week despite an oblique injury that kept him out for Week 5. He was limited on Wednesday and Friday but a full participant on Thursday. Either he aggravated the injury on Thursday or the Colts decided to stay with Joe Flacco for other reasons. Either possibility is believable. Indianapolis has won two of the three games in which Flacco has played, and it scored 34 points in the third. Richardson is 28th in EPA per dropback (minus-.08) this year. Flacco is seventh (.16).
Up next: vs. Miami Dolphins, Sunday, 1 p.m. ET
GO DEEPER
Michael Pittman Jr. puts Colts on his (bad) back: ‘He’s the toughest guy I’ve ever been around’
21. New Orleans Saints (2-4)
Last week: 20
Sunday: Lost to Tampa Bay Buccaneers 51-27
One Big Question: Is this defense finally aging?
Stalwart defensive end Cam Jordan is playing less than 50 percent of the snaps. Linebacker Demario Davis is still on the field just over 90 percent of the snaps, but he doesn’t have a tackle for loss or a game-changing play of any kind. After Sunday, New Orleans is last in the league in yards allowed (395.8 ypg) and 31st yards per play allowed (6.1). Both numbers are the third worst in the last 24 years of New Orleans football.
Up next: vs. Denver Broncos, Thursday, 8:15 p.m. ET
22. Arizona Cardinals (2-4)
Last week: 16
Sunday: Lost to Green Bay Packers 34-13
One Big Question: Did the new “Call of Duty” game come out early?
Emboldened after leading Arizona to a 24-23 win over San Francisco in Week 5, Murray announced his involvement in the new “Call of Duty” Black Ops 6 game, which is set to debut Oct. 25. He might have gotten an early copy, though. Murray’s EPA per dropback Sunday (minus-.07) was his second lowest of the season, and he rushed for only 14 yards. Murray’s 12 fantasy points produced against the Packers were the 10th fewest of his career.
Up next: vs. Los Angeles Chargers, Monday, 9 p.m. ET
To the trolls who memed me into a bag, thank you!
I’m officially launching my @CallofDuty partnership! #CODPartnership #TheReplacer #BlackOps6 pic.twitter.com/JwpZKxSzYo
— Kyler Murray (@K1) October 7, 2024
23. New York Jets (2-4)
Last week: 23
Monday: Lost to Buffalo Bills 23-20
One Big Question: Can they just run the Hail Mary every snap?
Aaron Rogers threw his fourth career Hail Mary touchdown at the end of the first half Monday night. It’s about the only thing that has worked out for New York this year. Firing Robert Saleh didn’t change their luck there. New York took over first place in the NFL in penalty yards lost (462) Monday night after being flagged 11 times for 110 yards. Javon Kinlaw got three by himself in under two minutes in the fourth quarter.
Up next: at Pittsburgh Steelers, Sunday, 8:20 p.m. ET
Why is Aaron so good at that 😂😂😂
— Patrick Mahomes II (@PatrickMahomes) October 15, 2024
24. New York Giants (2-4)
Last week: 21
Sunday: Lost to Cincinnati Bengals 17-7
One Big Question: How can you not love New York?
While the Jets stole the back page headlines by firing Robert Saleh, the Giants quietly had one of those stories that only seems to happen in the Big Apple. Wide receiver Malik Nabers made headlines by showing up at a Travis Scott concert last week while in concussion protocol and then was ruled out of the game Friday. With apologies to Darius Slayton, who had 57 receiving yards on Sunday, Nabers is the only person who makes this team watchable at this point. Daniel Jones returned to form Sunday, posting a 57.5 passer rating, although he did lead the Giants in rushing (56 yards).
Up next: vs. Philadelphia Eagles, Sunday, 1 p.m. ET
25. Las Vegas Raiders (2-4)
Last week: 24
Sunday: Lost to Pittsburgh Steelers 32-13
One Big Question: Why not trade Maxx Crosby, too?
Maybe the main reason is that he doesn’t want a trade, and he doesn’t even want anyone talking about the subject (Sorry, Maxx, we mean no harm.) “Don’t speak about me when you don’t know what’s going on,” Crosby said before Sunday’s game. “You think I want to be anywhere else? No. I’ve got this (team) tattooed on my body.” But this season is going nowhere (the Raiders are tied for 27th in points allowed – 27.2 per game – even with Crosby) and wide receiver Davante Adams is headed out the door. What kind of trade offer would it take for Crosby to make room for a Lions tattoo?
Up next: at Los Angeles Rams, Sunday, 4:05 p.m. ET
GO DEEPER
Raiders continue home misery with ugly loss to Steelers: ‘It sucks for the fans’
26. Los Angeles Rams (1-4)
Last week: 26
Sunday: Bye
One Big Question: Did they trade their soul for that Super Bowl?
The Rams are 16-24 (including playoffs) since beating Cincinnati 23-20 in Super Bowl LVI, and Matthew Stafford, Kyren Williams, Cooper Kupp and Puka Nacua have all missed significant time with injuries since then. Los Angeles is 26th in the league in point differential (minus-45) this year. Kupp could be back as soon as this week. Nacua’s return will take a little longer.
Up next: vs. Las Vegas Raiders, Sunday, 4:05 p.m. ET
27. Miami Dolphins (2-3)
Last week: 28
Sunday: Bye
One Big Question: If Tua’s coming back, when?
It sounds like Tua Tagovailoa wants to return to the game despite suffering a third confirmed concussion in the past three seasons in September. Former college head coach Nick Saban told “The Pat McAfee Show” that the quarterback wants to return, and Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said Tagovailoa had an “expert consultation” last week. There’s “nothing negative so far, but we’re still in the process,” McDaniel said. Whether that’s a good decision or not, Miami would love Tagovailoa on the field. Since the start of 2022, the Dolphins are 20-12 in the regular season and averaging 26.8 points when Tagovailoa starts and 2-5 with 13.6 points per game when he doesn’t.
Up next: at Indianapolis Colts, Sunday, 1 p.m. ET
The Titans are going nowhere with second-year quarterback Will Levis. (Andrew Nelles / The Tennessean / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)
28. Tennessee Titans (1-4)
Last week: 27
Sunday: Lost to Indianapolis Colts 20-17
One Big Question: Which 2025 quarterback do the Titans like?
Right now, Tennessee is set to draft sixth this spring, but that position is bound to get better the way things are going. That’s a good thing considering the way Will Levis is playing. The second-year quarterback is 35th in EPA per dropback (minus-.31) and has seven interceptions against just five touchdown passes. It’s more likely that this season’s failures will be heaped on Levis than first-year head coach Brian Callahan, although there’s plenty of blame to go around. Big-money free-agent wide receiver Calvin Ridley has two catches for 14 yards since Week 2. He had eight targets Sunday but no catches.
Up next: at Buffalo Bills, Sunday, 1 p.m. ET
29. New England Patriots (1-5)
Last week: 29
Sunday: Lost to Houston Texans 41-21
One Big Question: How was Drake Maye feeling Monday morning?
Ostensibly one of the reasons New England waited until Week 6 to start the rookie quarterback was a concern for his safety, and he was sacked four times Sunday, three by Will Anderson. But Maye is a big boy (6-foot-4, 225 pounds) and doesn’t appear fragile. Sacks notwithstanding, he made the Patriots much more watchable. Maye passed for 243 yards and three touchdowns. Former starter Jacoby Brissett threw two touchdowns in Weeks 1-5. Maye also led New England in rushing (38 yards). New England still lost its fifth straight, but at least it was less painful.
Up next: at Jacksonville Jaguars in London, Sunday, 9:30 a.m. ET (London)
30. Carolina Panthers (1-5)
Last week: 30
Sunday: Lost to Atlanta Falcons 38-20
One Big Question: How long can Dave Canales’ optimism survive?
The first-year head coach agreed with his former quarterback Baker Mayfield that he was an “optimist bully,” but things are bleak in Carolina. The Panthers have lost 20 of their last 23 games and are 32-73 under the ownership of David Tepper. They lost by 18 points Sunday to a Falcons team that has beaten just one other team that badly in the last four years. At least Carolina has its first-round pick in 2025.
Up next: at Washington Commanders, Sunday, 4:05 p.m. ET
31. Jacksonville Jaguars (1-5)
Last week: 31
Sunday: Lost to Chicago Bears 35-16
One Big Question: Should Doug Pederson go the Ted Lasso route?
The Jaguars are in the middle of back-to-back games in England, where team owner Shad Khad also owns soccer club Fulham F.C., which has never finished higher than seventh in the Premier League. It’s highly doubtful Khan wants Pederson to remain the head coach of his NFL team. The Jaguars, who have lost 10 of their last 12 games, have topped 20 points in only one game this season. If Pederson loses to New England on Sunday, maybe he can just stay in London.
Up next: vs. New England Patriots, Sunday, 9:30 a.m. ET (London)
32. Cleveland Browns (1-5)
Last week: 32
Sunday: Lost to Philadelphia Eagles 20-16
One Big Question: How hard is it to cheer for this team?
We’re not here to pile on Cleveland fans. Honestly. You guys have enough to deal with right now. The Browns are 30th in the league in scoring (15.83 ppg) with a $230 million quarterback that the head coach has to defend every Sunday afternoon. “Yes,” Deshaun Watson will start again next week, Kevin Stefanski said after Watson threw for 168 ineffectual yards and Cleveland failed to score an offensive touchdown on Sunday. Since the start of 2023, Zach Wilson, Bryce Young, Tommy DeVito and Bailey Zappe are the only quarterbacks who are worse than Watson by EPA per dropback.
Up next: vs. Cincinnati Bengals, Sunday, 1 p.m. ET
(Top photo of Jared Goff: Ron Jenkins / Getty Images)
Let’s memorize a poem! Not because it’s good for us or because we think we should, but because it’s fun, a mental challenge with a solid aesthetic reward. You can amuse yourself, impress your friends and maybe discover that your way of thinking about the world — or even, as you’ll see, the universe — has shifted a bit.
Over the next five days, we’ll look closely at a great poem by one of our favorite poets, and we’ll have games, readings and lots of encouragement to help you learn it by heart. Some of you know how this works: Last year more Times readers than we could count memorized a jaunty 18-line recap of an all-night ferry ride. (If you missed that adventure, it’s not too late to embark. The ticket is still valid.)
This time, we’re training our telescopes on W.H. Auden’s “The More Loving One” — a clever, compact meditation on love, disappointment and the night sky.
Here’s the first of its four stanzas, read for us by Matthew McConaughey:
The More Loving One
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.
Matthew McConaughey, actor and poet
In four short lines we get a brisk, cynical tour of the universe: hell and the heavens, people and animals, coldness and cruelty. Commonplace observations — that the stars are distant; that life can be dangerous — are wound into a charming, provocative insight. The tone is conversational, mixing decorum and mild profanity in a manner that makes it a pleasure to keep reading.
Here’s Tracy K. Smith, a former U.S. poet laureate, with the second stanza:
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
Tracy K. Smith, poet
These lines abruptly shift the focus from astronomy to love, from the universal to the personal. Imagine how it would feel if the stars had massive, unrequited crushes on us! The speaker, couching his skepticism in a coy, hypothetical question, seems certain that we wouldn’t like this at all.
This certainty leads him to a remarkable confession, a moment of startling vulnerability. The poem’s title, “The More Loving One,” is restated with sweet, disarming frankness. Our friend is wearing his heart on his well-tailored sleeve.
The poem could end right there: two stanzas, point and counterpoint, about how we appreciate the stars in spite of their indifference because we would rather love than be loved.
But the third stanza takes it all back. Here’s Alison Bechdel reading it:
Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.
Alison Bechdel, graphic novelist
The speaker downgrades his foolish devotion to qualified admiration. No sooner has he established himself as “the more loving one” than he gives us — and perhaps himself — reason to doubt his ardor. He likes the stars fine, he guesses, but not so much as to think about them when they aren’t around.
The fourth and final stanza, read by Yiyun Li, takes this disenchantment even further:
Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.
Yiyun Li, author
Wounded defiance gives way to a more rueful, resigned state of mind. If the universe were to snuff out its lights entirely, the speaker reckons he would find beauty in the void. A starless sky would make him just as happy.
Though perhaps, like so many spurned lovers before and after, he protests a little too much. Every fan of popular music knows that a song about how you don’t care that your baby left you is usually saying the opposite.
The last line puts a brave face on heartbreak.
So there you have it. In just 16 lines, this poem manages to be somber and funny, transparent and elusive. But there’s more to it than that. There is, for one thing, a voice — a thinking, feeling person behind those lines.
When he wrote “The More Loving One,” in the 1950s, Wystan Hugh Auden was among the most beloved writers in the English-speaking world. Before this week is over there will be more to say about Auden, but like most poets he would have preferred that we give our primary attention to the poem.
Its structure is straightforward and ingenious. Each of the four stanzas is virtually a poem unto itself — a complete thought expressed in one or two sentences tied up in a neat pair of couplets. Every quatrain is a concise, witty observation: what literary scholars call an epigram.
This makes the work of memorization seem less daunting. We can take “The More Loving One” one epigram at a time, marvelling at how the four add up to something stranger, deeper and more complex than might first appear.
So let’s go back to the beginning and try to memorize that insouciant, knowing first stanza. Below you’ll find a game we made to get you started. Give it a shot, and come back tomorrow for more!
Play a game to learn it by heart. Need more practice? Listen to Ada Limón, Matthew McConaughey, W.H. Auden and others recite our poem.
Question 1/6
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
Tap a word above to fill in the highlighted blank.
Your first task: Learn the first four lines!
Let’s start with the first couplet. Fill in the rhyming words.
Monday
Love, the cosmos and everything in between, all in 16 lines.
Tuesday (Available tomorrow)
What’s love got to do with it?
Wednesday (Available April 22)
How to write about love? Be a little heartsick (and the best poet of your time).
Thursday (Available April 23)
Are we alone in the universe? Does it matter?
Friday (Available April 24)
You did it! You’re a star.
Ready for another round? Try your hand at the 2025 Poetry Challenge.
Edited by Gregory Cowles, Alicia DeSantis and Nick Donofrio. Additional editing by Emily Eakin,
Joumana Khatib, Emma Lumeij and Miguel Salazar. Design and development by Umi Syam. Additional
game design by Eden Weingart. Video editing by Meg Felling. Photo editing by Erica Ackerberg.
Illustration art direction by Tala Safie.
Illustrations by Daniel Barreto.
Text and audio recording of “The More Loving One,” by W.H. Auden, copyright © by the Estate of
W.H. Auden. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd. Photograph accompanying Auden recording
from Imagno/Getty Images.
Literature
‘Romola’ (1863) by George Eliot
Who knew that there’s a major George Eliot novel that neither I nor any of my friends had ever heard of?
“Romola” was Eliot’s fourth novel, published between “The Mill on the Floss” (1860) and “Middlemarch” (1870-71). If my friends and I didn’t get this particular memo, and “Romola” is familiar to every Eliot fan but us, please skip the following.
“Romola” isn’t some fluky misfire better left unmentioned in light of Eliot’s greater work. It’s her only historical novel, set in Florence during the Italian Renaissance. It embraces big subjects like power, religion, art and social upheaval, but it’s not dry or overly intellectual. Its central character is a gifted, freethinking young woman named Romola, who enters a marriage so disastrous as to make Anna Karenina’s look relatively good.
It probably matters that many of Eliot’s other books have been adapted into movies or TV series, with actors like Hugh Dancy, Ben Kingsley, Emily Watson and Rufus Sewell. The BBC may be doing even more than we thought to keep classic literature alive. (In 1924, “Romola” was made into a silent movie starring Lillian Gish. It doesn’t seem to have made much difference.)
Anthony Trollope, among others, loved “Romola.” He did, however, warn Eliot against aiming over her readers’ heads, which may help explain its obscurity.
All I can say, really, is that it’s a mystery why some great books stay with us and others don’t.
‘Quiet Dell’ (2013) by Jayne Anne Phillips
This was an Oprah Book of the Week, which probably disqualifies it from B-side status, but it’s not nearly as well known as Phillips’s debut story collection, “Black Tickets” (1979), or her most recent novel, “Night Watch” (2023), which won her a long-overdue Pulitzer Prize.
Phillips has no parallel in her use of potent, stylized language to shine a light into the darkest of corners. In “Quiet Dell,” her only true-crime novel, she’s at the height of her powers, which are particularly apparent when she aims her language laser at horrific events that actually occurred. Her gift for transforming skeevy little lives into what I can only call “Blade Runner” mythology is consistently stunning.
Consider this passage from the opening chapter of “Quiet Dell”:
“Up high the bells are ringing for everyone alive. There are silver and gold and glass bells you can see through, and sleigh bells a hundred years old. My grandmother said there was a whisper for each one dead that year, and a feather drifting for each one waiting to be born.”
The book is full of language like that — and of complex, often chillingly perverse characters. It’s a dark, underrecognized beauty.
‘Solaris’ (1961) by Stanislaw Lem
You could argue that, in America, at least, the Polish writer Stanislaw Lem didn’t produce any A-side novels. You could just as easily argue that that makes all his novels both A-side and B-side.
It’s science fiction. All right?
I love science and speculative fiction, but I know a lot of literary types who take pride in their utter lack of interest in it. I always urge those people to read “Solaris,” which might change their opinions about a vast number of popular books they dismiss as trivial. As far as I know, no one has yet taken me up on that.
“Solaris” involves the crew of a space station continuing the study of an aquatic planet that has long defied analysis by the astrophysicists of Earth. Part of what sets the book apart from a lot of other science-fiction novels is Lem’s respect for enigma. He doesn’t offer contrived explanations in an attempt to seduce readers into suspending disbelief. The crew members start to experience … manifestations? … drawn from their lives and memories. If the planet has any intentions, however, they remain mysterious. All anyone can tell is that their desires and their fears, some of which are summoned from their subconsciousness, are being received and reflected back to them so vividly that it becomes difficult to tell the real from the projected. “Solaris” has the peculiar distinction of having been made into not one but two bad movies. Read the book instead.
‘Fox 8’ (2013) by George Saunders
If one of the most significant living American writers had become hypervisible with his 2017 novel, “Lincoln in the Bardo,” we’d go back and read his earlier work, wouldn’t we? Yes, and we may very well have already done so with the story collections “Tenth of December” (2013) and “Pastoralia” (2000). But what if we hadn’t yet read Saunders’s 2013 novella, “Fox 8,” about an unusually intelligent fox who, by listening to a family from outside their windows at night, has learned to understand, and write, in fox-English?: “One day, walking neer one of your Yuman houses, smelling all the interest with snout, I herd, from inside, the most amazing sound. Turns out, what that sound is, was: the Yuman voice, making werds. They sounded grate! They sounded like prety music! I listened to those music werds until the sun went down.”
Once Saunders became more visible to more of us, we’d want to read a book that ventures into the consciousness of a different species (novels tend to be about human beings), that maps the differences and the overlaps in human and animal consciousness, explores the effects of language on consciousness and is great fun.
We’d all have read it by now — right?
‘Between the Acts’ (1941) by Virginia Woolf
You could argue that Woolf didn’t have any B-sides, and yet it’s hard to deny that more people have read “Mrs. Dalloway” (1925) and “To the Lighthouse” (1927) than have read “The Voyage Out” (1915) or “Monday or Tuesday” (1921). Those, along with “Orlando” (1928) and “The Waves” (1931), are Woolf’s most prominent novels.
Four momentous novels is a considerable number for any writer, even a great one. That said, “Between the Acts,” her last novel, really should be considered the fifth of her significant books. The phrase “embarrassment of riches” comes to mind.
Five great novels by the same author is a lot for any reader to take on. Our reading time is finite. We won’t live long enough to read all the important books, no matter how old we get to be. I don’t expect many readers to be as devoted to Woolf as are the cohort of us who consider her to have been some sort of dark saint of literature and will snatch up any relic we can find. Fanatics like me will have read “Between the Acts” as well as “The Voyage Out,” “Monday or Tuesday” and “Flush” (1933), the story of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s cocker spaniel. Speaking for myself, I don’t blame anyone who hasn’t gotten to those.
I merely want to add “Between the Acts” to the A-side, lest anyone who’s either new to Woolf or a tourist in Woolf-landia fail to rank it along with the other four contenders.
As briefly as possible: It focuses on an annual village pageant that attempts to convey all of English history in a single evening. The pageant itself interweaves subtly, brilliantly, with the lives of the villagers playing the parts.
It’s one of Woolf’s most lusciously lyrical novels. And it’s a crash course, of sorts, in her genius for conjuring worlds in which the molehill matters as much as the mountain, never mind their differences in size.
It’s also the most accessible of her greatest books. It could work for some as an entry point, in more or less the way William Faulkner’s “As I Lay Dying” (1930) can be the starter book before you go on to “The Sound and the Fury” (1929) or “Absalom, Absalom!” (1936).
As noted, there’s too much for us to read. We do the best we can.
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Literature
‘Prayer’ (1985) by Galway Kinnell
Whatever happens. Whatever
what is is is what
I want. Only that. But that.
“I typically say Kinnell’s words at the start of my day, as I’m pedaling a traffic-laden path to my office,” says Major Jackson, 57, the author of six books of poetry, including “Razzle Dazzle” (2023). “The poem encourages a calm acceptance of the day’s events but also wants us to embrace the misapprehension and oblivion of life, to avoid probing too deeply for answers to inscrutable questions. I admire what Kinnell does with only 14 words; the repetition of ‘what,’ ‘that’ and ‘is’ would seem to limit the poem’s sentiment but, paradoxically, the poem opens widely to contain all manner of human experience. The three ‘is’es in the middle line give it a symmetry that makes its message feel part of a natural order, and even more convincing. Thanks to the skillful punctuation, pauses and staccato rhythm, a tonal quality of interior reflection emerges. Much like a haiku, it continues after its last words, lingering like the last note played on a piano that slowly fades.”
“Just as I was entering young adulthood, probably slow to claim romantic feelings, a girlfriend copied out a poem by Pablo Neruda and slipped it into an envelope with red lipstick kisses all over it. In turn, I recited this poem. It took me the remainder of that winter to memorize its lines,” says Jackson. “The poem captures the pitch of longing that defines love at its most intense. The speaker in Shakespeare’s most famous sonnet believes the poem creates the beloved, ‘So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, / So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.’ (Sonnet 18). In Rilke’s expressive declarations of yearning, the beloved remains elusive. Wherever the speaker looks or travels, she marks his world by her absence. I find this deeply moving.”
“Clifton faced many obstacles, including cancer, a kidney transplant and the loss of her husband and two of her children. Through it all, she crafted a long career as a pre-eminent American poet,” says Jackson. “Her poem ‘won’t you celebrate with me’ is a war cry, an invitation to share in her victories against life’s persistent challenges. The poem is meaningful to all who have had to stare down death in a hospital or had to bereave the passing of close relations. But, even for those who have yet to mourn life’s vicissitudes, the poem is instructive in cultivating resilience and a persevering attitude. I keep coming back to the image of the speaker’s hands and the spirit of steadying oneself in the face of unspeakable storms. She asks in a perfectly attuned gorgeously metrical line, ‘what did i see to be except myself?’”
‘Sonnet 94’ (1609) by William Shakespeare
They that have power to hurt and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmovèd, cold, and to temptation slow,
They rightly do inherit heaven’s graces
And husband nature’s riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others but stewards of their excellence.
The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to itself it only live and die;
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity.
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.
“It’s one of the moments of Western consciousness,” says Frederick Seidel, 90, the author of more than a dozen collections of poetry, including “So What” (2024). “Shakespeare knows and says what he knows.”
“It trombones magnificent, unbearable sorrow,” says Seidel.
“It’s smartass and bitter and bright,” says Seidel.
These interviews have been edited and condensed.
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