Poets & Writers Theater

“At some level, I’m never quite sure how the poem is going to resolve itself and that I'm always in some way surprised—I make a discovery in the poem as I write it,” says former U.S. poet laureate Rita Dove in this 2009 interview for Big Think, in which she answers questions about poetry and her writing process.

“It’s in your hands: the weight of the slats. All slightly bent to one side. As someone that bends with their ear towards the other trying to hear more: what?” Silvina López Medin reads her poem “The Sound of Blinds Being Pulled Up Is the First Sound” from her book Poem That Never Ends (Essay Press, 2021) in this video for Poetry Daily.

Author, poet, and translator Rajiv Mohabir and scholar Kadji Amin speak on the topics of queer theory and scholarship, the process of writing creative nonfiction and poetry, and the term “Asian American” in this virtual conversation for the Radical Thinkers series hosted by the Asian American Writers’ Workshop.

In this episode of Curated Conversation(s): a Latinx Poetry Show, Benjamin Garcia speaks about the writing process for his debut poetry collection, Thrown in the Throat (Milkweed Editions, 2020), with his former teacher and mentor Dana Levin. For more Garcia, read his installment of Writers Recommend.

“I have a bad habit of using random facts as a coping mechanism.” Watch this short film directed by Ryan Boyland featuring his poem “Rue,” which won the 2020 Button Poetry Video Contest for Emerging Writers.

“To love yourself so much you don’t wanna exploit anybody. Can you imagine not wanting to exploit anyone?” says Sonia Sanchez in her lecture to students in this 1991 episode of Writers Uncensored presented by the Lannan Foundation. This vintage episode features Sanchez and Lucille Clifton reading from their work and talking about their respective paths as poets.

“To me all good poetry is experimental in some way,” says poet Susan Howe in this film about Emily Dickinson by poet and filmmaker Benita Raphan, filmed on location at the Morgan Library & Museum and the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Raphan, a Guggenheim fellow known for her short experimental films, died at the age of fifty-eight on January 10, 2021.

“Revelation never comes as a fern uncoiling / a frond in mist; it comes when I trip on a root, / slap a mosquito on my arm,” reads Arthur Sze from his poem "Earthshine" in this 2008 video for the Lunch Poems reading series at the University of California, Berkeley. Sze’s latest collection, The Glass Constellation: New and Collected Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2021), is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this 2019 video, Diane Seuss reads from her books of poetry and speaks about her writing with Washington Post’s Ron Charles at Hill Center in Washington, D.C. for a series hosted by the Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress. Seuss’s essay “Restless Herd: Some Thoughts on Order—In Poetry, In Life” appears in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Watch this trailer for the Cadence: Video Poetry Festival, presented by Northwest Film Forum and programmed in collaboration with Seattle author Chelsea Werner-Jatzke and artist Rana San. The annual festival is a series of screenings, workshops, and discussions on the genre of video poetry held during National Poetry Month in April. Read more about the Seattle literary scene in our Seattle City Guide written by E. J. Koh.

“I think I lead with sound, in a certain way. There’s a percussive place that I go with my measure,” says Hoa Nguyen in this interview for Project 40’s Traces series, which documents the process and practices of Asian Canadian creatives. Nguyen’s A Thousand Times You Lose Your Treasure (Wave Books, 2021) is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“There’s a sister who works so hard she never talks. / A sister who screams when she hears dogs bark.” Monica Sok reads “Sestina” from her debut poetry collection, A Nail the Evening Hangs On (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), for Women Warriors: A Solidarity Reading, presented by the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, which featured over forty Asian American women writers. 

“I wanted to continue to participate in that tradition of hope-making in every single poem that I wrote,” says Amanda Gorman about frequently listening to Maya Angelou’s inaugural poem “On the Pulse of Morning” in this conversation with Oprah Winfrey for Apple TV Plus.

“The storm funneled through town with destructive intent. / Fractured tree limbs, toppled fences, rippled shingles / like tufts of hair.” In this PBS NewsHour video, Fady Joudah reads “House of Mercury” from his poetry collection Tethered to Stars (Milkweed Editions, 2021), which is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“My mother doesn’t write recipes, / she just knows. // Braised pork and eggs, / rice cleaned thoroughly.” Joshua Nguyen, author of the chapbook, American Lục Bát for My Mother (Bull City Press, 2021), reads two poems in this video for the Write About Now Poetry reading series in Houston. 

“I had a dream of having poetry at the intersections of New York, where all kinds of people pass through daily,” says Marie Howe, former New York State poet laureate, in this 2015 video about the inspiration for the Poetry in Motion: The Poet Is In festival. The annual National Poetry Month event is hosted by the Poetry Society of America and MTA Arts & Design, and features poems written on request by award-winning poets.

“If we could just stop, and listen,” begins Joy Harjo in a conversation about how stillness, gratitude, and kindness can help heal America in this Super Soul Sunday video with Oprah Winfrey.

“I have so many questions of you, / for you are closer to me than anyone // has ever been, tumbling, as you are, this second, / through my heart’s every chamber,” reads Ross Gay from his poem “Poem to My Child, If Ever You Shall Be” in this video with music by Gia Margaret, a collaboration from a new Jagjaguwar album called Dilate Your Heart.

“If only we knew / what music is. / If only we understood,” reads Adam Zagajewski from his poem “Poets Photographed,” included in his collection Unseen Hand, in this 2015 reading at Trinity College in Cambridge, England. Recipient of the 2004 Neustadt International Prize for Literature and many other literary awards, Zagajewski died at the age of seventy-five in Krakow, Poland, on March 21, 2021.

“I became interested in Black poets writing about the animal as the result of my own work,” says Joy Priest at the beginning of her virtual craft talk titled “The Black Poet & the Deer: On the Transpositional Phenomena of the Line” for the Vermont Studio Center. Priest is the author of Horsepower (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020) and was a featured guest writer for Craft Capsules, a series of micro craft essays exploring the finer points of writing.