Theater video tags: January/February 2025

The Luminous Life: Debut Poets Virtual Reading

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Poets & Writers Magazine features editor India Lena González hosts this two-part event celebrating the ten debut poets featured in “The Luminous Life: Our Twentieth Annual Look at Debut Poets” from our January/February 2025 issue. The virtual event includes readings from the poets, as well as conversations about their debut books, their influences and inspirations, and their individual paths to publication.

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Lee Hawkins

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“This book is not about blame, it’s about understanding.” In this Enoch Pratt Free Library event in Baltimore, Lee Hawkins speaks about the history and research he encountered in the writing process of his debut memoir, I Am Nobody’s Slave: How Uncovering My Family’s History Set Me Free (Amistad, 2025). Hawkins’s memoir is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Poetry and Shame With Matthew Nienow

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“Some things, then, cannot be repaired and must go on, into a kind of dusk that seems somehow endless,” reads Matthew Nienow from his poem “Dusk Loop,” which appears in his second poetry collection, If Nothing (Alice James Books, 2025), in this reading and conversation for the Table For Deuce podcast hosted by poets Kate Hanson Foster and Michael Schmeltzer. Nienow’s collection is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

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Pico Iyer on Learning From Silence

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In this episode of the Keep Talking Podcast, Pico Iyer talks about losing his home in the 1990 Painted Cave fire in Santa Barbara, his experiences with silence, and his new book, Aflame: Learning From Silence (Riverhead Books, 2025), which is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Well Versed With Pádraig Ó Tuama

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In this virtual reading from the Well Versed series hosted by StAnza, Scotland’s International Poetry Festival, and Open Book, Pádraig Ó Tuama reads from his collection Feed the Beast (Broken Sleep Books, 2022) and discusses the themes of place and nature within his poems. Ó Tuama’s fourth poetry collection, Kitchen Hymns (Copper Canyon Press, 2025), is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

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Darius Atefat-Peckham and Raisa Tolchinsky

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In this Grolier Poetry Book Shop reading, Darius Atefat-Peckham reads from his debut collection, Book of Kin (Autumn House Press, 2024), and Raisa Tolchinsky reads from her debut collection, Glass Jaw (Persea Books, 2024). Atefat-Peckham is featured in “The Luminous Life: Our Twentieth Annual Look at Debut Poets” in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

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Writing Personal and Collective Histories

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In this Brooklyn Book Festival virtual event, authors Hisham Matar, Rania Mamoun, and Omar Khalifah talk about the purpose and urgency of writing about history during times of crisis in a conversation moderated by writer and translator Yasmin Seale. Khalifah’s novel, Sand-Catcher (Coffee House Press, 2024), is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Saretta Morgan

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In this University of Arizona Poetry Center event, Saretta Morgan discusses the importance of writing amidst global crises and reads from her debut collection, Alt-Nature (Coffee House Press, 2024), after an introduction by Marianna Ariel ColesCurtis. Morgan is featured in “The Luminous Life: Our Twentieth Annual Look at Debut Poets” in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

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Emily Lee Luan and Jimin Seo

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In this Live From NYPL event at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library, Emily Lee Luan reads from her collection, 回 / Return (Nightboat Books, 2023), and Jimin Seo reads from his debut collection, OSSIA (Changes Press, 2024), followed by a discussion on the poetics of grief and memory. Seo is featured in “The Luminous Life: Our Twentieth Annual Look at Debut Poets” in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

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Zahid Rafiq

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In this virtual book launch event hosted by the Writer’s Center, Zahid Rafiq reads from his debut short story collection, The World With Its Mouth Open (Tin House, 2024), and discusses his experiences living in Kashmir in a conversation with Emily Fridlund. Rafiq’s book is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

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