Poets & Writers Theater

In this reading celebrating the annual Poets House Showcase exhibition, Hala Alyan reads from The Moon That Turns You Back (Ecco, 2024), Cynthia Cruz reads from Sweet Repetition (University of Chicago Press, 2025), Carl Phillips reads from Scattered Snows, to the North (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024), and Rowan Ricardo Phillips reads from Silver (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024).

“may the tide / that is entering even now / the lip of our understanding / carry you out / beyond the face of fear…” Here’s a poem to help welcome in the new year: Elizabeth Acevedo reads “blessing the boats” by Lucille Clifton in this 2021 installment of the Ours Poetica series, sponsored by Complexly and the Poetry Foundation.

Watch authors Malcolm Gladwell, Meg Rosoff, Emma Thompson, Colm Toibin, and others read the classic poem “A Visit From St. Nicholas” by Clement Clarke Moore in this Penguin Books video from 2013.

In this Green Apple Books event, the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network (DVAN) presents a night of readings featuring writers François Luong, Aimee Phan, Minnie Phan, and Thien Pham, sponsored by the San Francisco Public Library and San Francisco Arts Commission.

“This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.” In this video that originally aired in 2012, poet Joy Harjo reads her poem “Perhaps the World Ends Here,” which appears in her collection The Woman Who Fell From the Sky (Norton, 1994), for PBS NewsHour.

In this virtual reading and celebration, Poets & Writers Magazine features editor India Lena González introduces the 2025 cohort of “5 Over 50” debut authors: Princess Joy L. Perry, author of This Here Is Love (Norton, 2025); Vishwas R. Gaitonde, author of On Earth as It Is in Heaven (Orison Books, 2025); Yael Valencia Aldana, author of Black Mestiza (University Press of Kentucky, 2025); Lauren K. Watel, author of Book of Potions (Sarabande Books, 2025); and Jennifer Eli Bowen, author of The Book of Kin: On Absence, Love, and Being There (Milkweed Editions, 2025).

In this Poets & Writers event, 2025 Jackson Poetry Prize winner Cyrus Cassells reads a selection of poems from his first book, The Mud Actor (Henry Holt, 1982), and his most recent book, Everything in Life Is Resurrection: Selected Poems, 1982–2022 (TCU Press, 2025), and joins Pádraig Ó Tuama for a conversation about his evolution as a poet.

In this Alaska Quarterly Review virtual event, poet and naturalist Elizabeth Bradfield reads from her collection SOFAR (Persea Books, 2025) and discusses the relationship of her poetics to ocean ecologies, memories of queer love, and both human and natural histories.

In this Poets House event, four poets read from their new books: Kimberly Alidio, author of Traceable Relation (Fonograf Editions, 2025); Courtney Bush, author of A Movie (Lavender Ink, 2025); Natalie Shapero, author of Stay Dead (Copper Canyon Press, 2025); and Emily Skillings, author of Tantrums in Air (The Song Cave, 2025).

In this Poets & Writers event, 2024 Jackson Poetry Prize winner Fady Joudah reads a selection of poems, including from his National Book Award–nominated collection, [...] (Milkweed Editions, 2024), and joins Pádraig Ó Tuama for a conversation about his work and life as a poet.

In this Poetry.LA video, Altadena co-poets laureate Lester Graves Lennon and Sehba Sarwar read a selection of their poems and speak about how the Eaton Fire has affected their lives and community. Lennon and Sarwar were recently awarded a fellowship from the Academy of American Poets to launch their poetry project “After the Fires: Healing from Histories.”

In this Poets House event, Garrett Hongo reads from his fourth poetry collection, Ocean of Clouds (Knopf, 2025), and Edward Hirsch reads from his new memoir, My Childhood in Pieces: A Stand-Up Comedy, a Skokie Elegy (Knopf, 2025), followed by a conversation between the authors about their friendship and humor.

In this excerpt from an interview with NBC Chicago, the late Andrea Gibson reads their poem “Love Letter From the Afterlife” to their wife Megan Falley. Gibson died at the age of forty-nine on July 14, 2025.

“You might think I am just old but I have finally decided to make the decision to never grow up, and remain under my hood.” In this video, Fanny Howe reads from her poetry collection Second Childhood (Graywolf Press, 2014) at the 2014 National Book Awards ceremony. Howe died at the age of eighty-four on July 9, 2025.

CD Eskilson celebrates the release of their debut poetry collection, Scream / Queen (Acre Books, 2025), in this reading and conversation with poets Ashia Ajani and Preeti Vangani at Green Apple Books in San Francisco.

In this video, Heid E. Erdrich reads from her collections Verb Animate: Poetry and Prompts From Collaborative Acts (Trio House Press, 2024) and Little Big Bully (Penguin Books, 2020), and answers questions about hope, memories, and revision for this Jensen Lecture Series event hosted by Western Oregon University.

“‘In a dark cave, I saw’ ‘an apparition:’ ‘almost real, almost there—’...” In this 2016 video, Alice Notley reads from her feminist epic The Descent of Alette (Penguin Books, 1996) for a two-day event at the Lab in San Francisco cosponsored by the Poetry Center at San Francisco State University. Notley died at the age of seventy-nine on May 20, 2025.

Marilyn Chin reads from her sixth poetry collection, Sage (Norton, 2023), and answers questions about the public role of the modern poet and her references to ancient traditions and pop culture in this 2023 virtual installment of the Hugh C. Hyde Living Writers’ Series hosted by San Diego State University’s Creative Writing program.

In this Poetry Night Panel event at Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington, D.C., Brandel France de Bravo, author of Locomotive Cathedral (The Backwaters Press, 2025), and Julie Choffel, author of Dear Wallace (The Backwaters Press, 2024), read a selection of poems and join María Fernanda for a conversation about how literature helps one grapple with the challenges of life.

In this Books Are Magic event, Cathy Linh Che reads from her second poetry collection, Becoming Ghost (Washington Square Press, 2025), and talks about how her parents’ experience as extras in Francis Ford Coppola’s film Apocalypse Now shaped her book in a conversation with poet Wo Chan.