Poets & Writers Theater
Every day we share a new clip of interest to creative writers—author readings, book trailers, publishing panels, craft talks, and more. So grab some popcorn, filter the theater tags by keyword or genre, and explore our sizable archive of literary videos.
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In this short reading hosted by the University of Illinois Chicago’s SparkTalks series, Daniel Borzutzky reads “Apparatus #519” from his poetry collection The Murmuring Grief of the Americas (Coffee House Press, 2024), which is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
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In this video from U.K. publisher Carcanet Press, Carl Phillips talks about the themes of memory and reflection within his seventeenth poetry collection, Scattered Snows, to the North (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024), which is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
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In this installment of the Visions of America: All Stories, All People, All Places series hosted by the Institute of Museum and Library Services and PBS Books, Kaoukab Chebaro, head of Global Studies at the Columbia University Libraries, discusses the importance of first-person storytelling and her work in preserving the individual history of Arabs across the globe.
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“The reason why I favor long poems—not just writing them but reading them—is that it just feels like a much truer picture of the self, or selves.” In this Books Are Magic event, Jason Koo reads from his latest poetry collection, No Rest (Diode Editions, 2024), and discusses the narrative opportunities of long poems in a conversation with Bessie Flores Zaldívar.
Tags: Poetry | Jason Koo | Bessie Flores Zaldivar | No Rest | Diode Editions | Books Are Magic | reading | conversation | writing process | 2024 -
Poet, translator, and editor Urayoán Noel reads two poems from the Letras Latinas Oral History Project, an archive that began in 2005, in this Poets House video. For more about Letras Latinas, read this Q&A with director Francisco Aragón in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
Tags: Poetry | Translation | Urayoán Noel | Letras Latinas | Poets House | reading | Spanish | Latinx | March/April 2024 -
In this video, the University of California in Berkeley celebrates their Arts Research Center’s 2023 Poetry & the Senses program with a reading by Indigenous writers and program facilitators Beth Piatote, Natalie Diaz, and Craig Santos Perez on the theme of reclamation. Perez’s new collection, Call This Mutiny: Uncollected Poems (Omnidawn, 2024), is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
Tags: Poetry | Cross-Genre | UC Berkeley | Arts Research Center | Poetry & the Senses | Natalie Diaz | Beth Piatote | Craig Santos Perez | reading | Page One | July/August 2024 -
In this Haymarket Books event, Faylita Hicks reads from her second poetry collection, A Map of My Want (Haymarket Books, 2024), which is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine. The event includes an introduction by Aricka Foreman and readings by Andrea Change, Billy Tuggle, Carmendy Tuggle, and Ruben Quesada.
Tags: Poetry | Faylita Hicks | A Map of My Want | Haymarket Books | Aricka Foreman | Andrea Change | Billy Tuggle | Carmendy Tuggle | Ruben Quesada | Page One | July/August 2024 -
In this WREG News Channel 3 interview in Memphis, Tara M. Stringfellow talks about how her work as an attorney informed her writing and discusses the poems in her first collection, Magic Enuff (Dial Press, 2024). For more from Stringfellow, read her installment of our Ten Questions series.
Tags: Poetry | Tara Stringfellow | Magic Enuff | Dial Press | WREG News Channel 3 | Memphis | interview | Ten Questions | 2024 -
In this Moon Palace Books event in Minneapolis celebrating Taiyon J. Coleman’s debut essay collection, Traveling Without Moving: Essays From a Black Woman Trying to Survive in America (University of Minnesota Press, 2024), which is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, the author reads with fellow Chicagoan writers April Gibson and Lester A. Batiste.
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“We are afraid like all mothers.” In this Write About Now Poetry video, spoken word artist and activist Amal Kassir reads her poem “A Prayer” for a live audience.
Tags: Poetry | Spoken Word | Amal Kassir | A Prayer | Write About Now Poetry | reading | activism | 2024 -
“I know all the dark places / Where the sun hasn’t reached yet...” Charles Simic reads his poem “Summer Morning,” which he says needs no introduction, in this video for an installment of Poetry Breaks, a series created by Leita Luchetti in the 1980s and 1990s presented in partnership with the Academy of American Poets. The Pulitzer Prize–winning poet died at the age of eighty-four on January 9, 2023.
Tags: Poetry | Charles Simic | Summer Morning | reading | Poetry Breaks | Academy of American Poets | in memoriam -
In this Louisiana Channel video, Russian poet and journalist Maria Stepanova offers her advice for young writers to look forward to something unknown and to be able to “look into the future with some degree of hope.”
Tags: Poetry | Fiction | Creative Nonfiction | Translation | Maria Stepanova | writing advice | writing process | Louisiana Channel | interview | 2022 -
Watch this short video offering a glimpse of the miniature books handwritten by revered authors in the library of Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House at Windsor Castle, the residence of the British royal family in the eponymous English town. Read more about the miniature library in “The Written Image: Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House Library Books” in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
Tags: Poetry | Fiction | Creative Nonfiction | Queen Mary's Dolls' House | Windsor Castle | library | miniatures | books | The Written Image | July/August 2024 -
In this video, Nikki Giovanni reads a selection of her poems and speaks about her life and career for the Wright Conversations series hosted by the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit and PBS Books.
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“On the wall of the room there was a mirror / reflecting back a comical skull that was laughing at itself.” In this bilingual poetry reading, “Self-Portrait in the Zone of Silence” is read in the original Spanish by Homero Aridjis and the English translation is read by George McWhirter. Aridjis and McWhirter won the 2024 Griffin Poetry Prize for the collection of the same name, published by New Directions.
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In this virtual reading hosted by the Oak Spring Garden Foundation and Furious Flower Poetry Center, Lauren K. Alleyne introduces Ashia Ajani, who reads from their debut collection, Heirloom (Write Bloody Publishing, 2023), and Ariana Benson, who reads from their debut collection, Black Pastoral (University of Georgia Press, 2023), winner of the 2022 Cave Canem Poetry Prize.
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In this event hosted by the Townsend Center for the Humanities and the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Ocean Vuong talks about his journey through poetry and teaching, how his voice and understanding of genre have changed, and whether or not poetry can change the world in a conversation with Cathy Park Hong. “I’ve always been doubtful of myself, of my work, of my life. But when I’m writing, when I’m inside the poem, I rarely feel true fear,” says Vuong.
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In this Poetry.LA interview, bridgette bianca reads from her debut collection, be/trouble (Writ Large Press, 2020), and talks about the origins of her writing career, documenting her experiences as a professor, and her love of romance novels in a conversation with host Luivette Resto.
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In this event for Vancouver Writers Fest’s Incite reading series, Booker Prize–winning author Michael Ondaatje reads from his new poetry collection, A Year of Last Things (Knopf, 2024), and discusses why he returned to poetry after twenty years of writing novels in a conversation with Jenny Penberthy. “The voice was the most important thing to find, that I could speak almost casually in a poem, whereas a novel is more formal and planned.”
Tags: Poetry | Michael Ondaatje | A Year of Last Things | Knopf | Vancouver Writers Fest | Incite reading series | Jenny Penberthy | reading | 2024 -
In this Haymarket Books event, Julian Randall reads from his first essay collection, The Dead Don’t Need Reminding: In Search of Fugitives, Mississippi, and Black TV Nerd Sh*t (Bold Type Books, 2024), which is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine. The event also includes an introduction by Gabriel Ramirez and readings by poets George Abraham and Itiola Jones.