Poets & Writers Theater

“There’s something in the lyric moment that really ruptures the taken for granted-ness of the world.” Meena Alexander discusses her writing process, artistic collaborations, and the sensory experience of being a poet in this interview for CUNY TV. Alexander is the author of Atmospheric Embroidery (TriQuarterly Books, 2018), which is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Perhaps the butterflies are mute because / no one would believe their terrible stories.” In this interview for the Poetry.LA series, Marcelo Hernandez Castillo speaks about late night talk shows, immigration interviews, the PechaKucha format, and reads from his debut poetry collection, Cenzontle (BOA Editions, 2018), which won the 2017 A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize.

“Frank grew crows for hands / it was a difficult childhood...” In this video, CAConrad reads a series of poems from The Book of Frank (Wave Books, 2010) for a 2013 reading at the Machine Project in Los Angeles. CAConrad’s poetry collection While Standing in Line for Death (Wave Books, 2017) won the 2018 Lambda Literary Award in gay poetry.

“I didn’t have a chance / to say a word before you became / a character in the news...” Khaled Hosseini, Rita Dove, Philip Gourevitch, and Siri Hustvedt read Liu Xia’s poem “June 2nd, 1989” from Empty Chairs (Graywolf Press, 2015), translated from the Chinese by Ming Di and Jennifer Stern. PEN America and Amnesty International collaborated on the video series as a call to free Liu Xia from house arrest in Beijing, where she has been held since her late husband, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, was imprisoned in 2009.

“I think something like garage or grime or rap, hip-hop, appeals to me because they’re very metrical, rhyme-based forms.” Zambian British poet Kayo Chingonyi talks about his path to poetry, his interests and influences, and internationalism and Anglophone literature for Writers’ Centre Norwich. Chingonyi won the 2018 International Dylan Thomas Prize for his debut poetry collection, Kumukanda (Chatto & Windus, 2017).

“My family is a group of redwoods / that sought god instead of ground...” Samoan American poet William Nu’utupu Giles reads his poem “Prescribed Fire” at the 2015 National Poetry Slam. Giles won the National Underground Poetry Individual Competition in 2015, the first Pacific Islander to win the award.

Luljeta Lleshanaku reads from her collection Haywire: New & Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books, 2011) in English translation and in the original Albanian, and talks about how history, politics, and religion have informed her writing. Lleshanaku’s new collection, Negative Space (New Directions, 2018), translated from the Albanian by Ani Gjika, is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“What are you? Where are you from? / I say, California, / but that’s not what they are looking for...” This Motionpoems film is an adaptation of Tiana Clark’s poem “The Ayes Have It,” directed by Savanah Leaf and narrated by Malina Tirrell. Clark is the author of I Can’t Talk About the Trees Without the Blood (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018).

Glenn Close reads “Old Wives’ Tales on Which I Was Fed” from Jenny Xie’s debut collection, Eye Level (Graywolf Press, 2018), which won the Academy of American Poets’ 2017 Walt Whitman Award. Eye Level is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Tommy Pico speaks with Kasie Griffitts for Duende District’s Duende Conversations series about life as a poet, tribal storytelling, and the shifty definition of literary success. Pico is the author of Junk (Tin House Books, 2018), which is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“It’s what poetry can do—it can take us to other places, in a moment.” Cynthia Nixon and other cultural figures including Yo-Yo Ma, Joe Biden, Sonia Sanchez, Shaquille O’Neal, Edward Hirsch, and Bono are featured in this trailer for the public television series Poetry in America. Hosted by Harvard professor Elisa New, each episode explores and interprets a single American poem.

“I’m just a series of words on pieces of paper.” In this interview with John Yau for the New York Foundation for the Arts, the poet and art critic speaks about his family, art, and cooking, which have all influenced his writing. Yau is the winner of the 2018 Jackson Poetry Prize.

Jason Reynolds speaks about his new books, Sunny and For Every One, both published last month by Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books, reading for the dedication of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, and the importance of daring to dream on Late Night With Seth Meyers.

“Sit down, world / and relax / so you don’t have tornadoes.” Preschool Poets, an animated series codirected by Nancy Kangas and Josh Kun, collects poems written by preschool students in Columbus, Ohio, and matches them up with renowned animators. Animated by Stas Santimov, “Bullets” was written by Brayden and read by his classmate Miracle.

“It’s so wonderful…to sit down together, look into each other’s faces, and talk and listen, and then make something of it.” Marie Howe speaks about The Poet Is In, an annual program that brings more than thirty award-winning poets together to write individual poems on request. The 2017 event was cosponsored by the Poetry Society of America and MTA Arts & Design, and held during National Poetry Month in April.

“Poetry travels, you don’t need a lot of money to write it, you don’t need a lot of money to print it and distribute it.” Evie Shockley, a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in poetry for her third collection, semiautomatic (Wesleyan University Press, 2017), talks with City of Asylum about the accessibility of writing poetry and its long and powerful tradition.

In this 2016 video, Carmen Giménez Smith reads from a selection of her poems for the Lunch Poems reading series at the University of California in Berkeley. Smith speaks about her fifth book, Cruel Futures (City Lights Books, 2018), in “The Love of Labor, the Labor of Love” by Rigoberto González in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this Chicago magazine video, poets Raych Jackson, Natalie Rose Richardson, and Jamila Woods read from their poems which are featured in the new poetry anthology, The BreakBeat Poets Volume 2: Black Girl Magic (Haymarket Books, 2018). LaToya Jordan speaks with Mahogany L. Browne, one of the editors of the anthology, in “At the Center of Hip-Hop and Poetry” in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“People live in stations like they never had mothers or fathers...” Jennifer Hayashida reads from her debut poetry collection, A Machine Wrote This Song (Gramma, 2018), in this book trailer filmed by Hayashida and Benj Gerdes.

Ramón García, author of the poetry collections The Chronicles (Red Hen Press, 2015) and Other Countries (What Books Press, 2010), reads his poems and speaks with Mariano Zaro for the Poetry.LA series about how his suburban childhood in Modesto, California has influenced his writing.