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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“My body, now that we will not be traveling together much longer / I begin to feel a new tenderness toward you, very raw and unfamiliar / like what I remember of love when I was young.” In this video, Nobel Prize–winning author Louise Glück reads “Crossroads” from her collection A Village Life (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009), which was shortlisted for the 2010 Griffin Poetry Prize. Glück died at the age of eighty on October 13, 2023.
Tags: Poetry | Louise Glück | reading | A Village Life | Farrar, Straus and Giroux | Griffin Poetry Prize | Crossroads | 2010 | in memoriam | 2023 -
“Nowhere else does the sky do what the sky does there / where the graves are filled with dirt the color of fire.” Terrance Hayes reads his poem “Arbor for Butch,” which appears in his National Book Award–winning collection, Lighthead (Penguin Books), for this 2010 reading at the 92nd Street Y in New York City.
Tags: Poetry | Terrance Hayes | Lighthead | Penguin Books | National Book Award | 92NY | 2010 -
“Now the oil-fired heating boiler comes to life / Abruptly, drowsily, like the timed collapse / Of a sawn-down tree, I imagine them.” In this 2011 PBS NewsHour video, the late Seamus Heaney reads from and speaks about his final collection, Human Chain (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010). The Nobel Prize–winning poet died at the age of seventy-four on August 30, 2013.
Tags: Poetry | Seamus Heaney | Human Chain | 2010 | PBS NewsHour | interview | in memoriam -
“This is not a work of history. It is a report full of holes,” reads the late C. D. Wright from her book One With Others: [a little book of her days] (Copper Canyon Press, 2010) in this 2015 recording of an event at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University.
Tags: Poetry | Creative Nonfiction | C. D. Wright | One With Others | Duke University | documentary | 2010 | Copper Canyon Press | 2015 -
“I am poling / my way into my life. / It seems / like another life,” reads the late poet Jean Valentine from her poem “La Chalupa, the Boat” in this 2010 video recorded at Boston University. Valentine is the author of fourteen poetry collections including Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, 1965–2003, which won the National Book Award, and Break the Glass, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She died at the age of eighty-six on December 29, 2020.
Tags: Poetry | Jean Valentine | reading | Boston University | 2010 | in memoriam -
“All writing is really an act of translation, we’re trying to ask someone to inhabit someone else’s experience for long enough to understand some portion of it.” In this 2018 interview for Oregon Humanities Center’s UO Today, Danielle Evans reads from her debut story collection, Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self (Riverhead Books, 2010), and speaks about her writing practice and teaching. Evans is featured in “The Confounding Insistence on Innocence” by Naomi Jackson in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
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John Murillo reads “Trouble Man,” a poem from his first collection, Up Jump the Boogie (Cypher Books, 2010), and a poem by Etheridge Knight for the P.O.P series, shot and edited by Rachel Eliza Griffiths in partnership with the Academy of American Poets. Murillo’s second collection, Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry (Four Way Books, 2020), is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
Tags: Poetry | John Murillo | P.O.P. series | Academy of American Poets | Up Jump the Boogie | Cypher Books | 2010 | Page One | March/April 2020 -
“I’ve said so often that I’m hoarse with it: Kenya is cities, towns, as well as wilderness. See us.” Shailja Patel, author of Migritude (Kaya Press, 2010), contributes this video poem for Queer Check-Ins, a series curated by poet Franny Choi with support from the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, Kundiman, and Lambda Literary.
Tags: Poetry | Shailja Patel | Migritude | Kaya Press | 2010 | video poem | Queer Check-Ins | Smithsonian APA Center | Kundiman | Lambda Literary Foundation -
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.
Tags: Poetry | Ramón García | The Chronicles | Red Hen Press | 2015 | Other Countries | What Books Press | 2010 | Poetry.LA interview series | Mariano Zaro | interview -
“Every time you choose wrong. Blame it on empire.” Gary Jackson’s poem “Tryouts” from his debut collection, Missing You, Metropolis (Graywolf Press, 2010), is animated by Victor Newman and narrated by Chuck Johnson for Motionpoems.
Tags: Poetry | Gary Jackson | Tryouts | Graywolf Press | 2010 | Motionpoems | animation | short film | Missing You, Metropolis -
Ursula K. Le Guin reads from her novels The Dispossessed (Harper & Row, 1974) and Always Coming Home (Harper & Row, 1985) at Powell’s Books in 2010 in this video produced by pdxjustice Media Productions.
Tags: Fiction | Ursula K. Le Guin | The Dispossessed | Always Coming Home | Harper & Row | 2010 | Powell's Books | reading -
Ed Lin’s hardboiled thriller trilogy, This Is a Bust (Kaya Press, 2007), Snakes Can’t Run (Minotaur Books, 2010), and One Red Bastard (Minotaur Books, 2012), is being reissued by Witness Impulse. The mystery novels take place in the 1970s, and feature Chinese American detective and Vietnam veteran Robert Chow solving crimes in New York City’s Chinatown.
Tags: Fiction | Ed Lin | mystery | book trailer | 2017 | Witness Impulse | 2007 | 2010 | 2012 | Minotaur Books | Kaya Press -
Allegra Goodman introduces and reads from her novel The Cookbook Collector (Dial Press, 2010) at the 2010 National Book Festival. Goodman’s sixth novel, The Chalk Artist (Dial Press, 2017), is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
Tags: Fiction | Allegra Goodman | reading | National Book Festival | The Cookbook Collector | The Chalk Artist | Dial Press | 2010 | 2017 | Page One | July/August 2017 -
Rebecca Skloot’s nonfiction book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Crown Publishing Group, 2010), which explores the life and legacy of an African American woman whose cells became the basis of numerous scientific breakthroughs, has been adapted into a television movie starring Oprah Winfrey and Rose Byrne.
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Daniel Clowes’s graphic novel Wilson (Drawn and Quarterly, 2010) has been adapted into a feature film starring Isabella Amara, Laura Dern, and Woody Harrelson. Directed by Craig Johnson, the film follows the comedic story of a lonely middle-aged man who reconnects with his estranged wife to search for their daughter who was given up for adoption.
Tags: Fiction | Daniel Clowes | Wilson | Drawn and Quarterly | 2010 | 2017 | movie trailer | film adaptation | graphic novel -
“Guam is air-conditioned, Guam is updating its Facebook status, Guam is a punch line in Hollywood movie jokes...” Craig Santos Perez, a 2016 Lannan Literary Awards and Fellowships honoree and recipient of the 2010 Poets & Writers California Writers Exchange Award for poetry, reads from his award-winning collection, from unincorporated territory [guma'] (Omnidawn, 2014).
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“I wrote the poems that I wanted to read and I wrote about the experiences that I wanted to find.” Jackie Kay, Scotland's first black national poet, speaks about her memoir, Red Dust Road (Picador, 2010), which chronicles the search for her birth parents, and what she hopes to share through her poetry.
Tags: PBS NewsHour | Picador | 2010 | Jackie Kay | Scotland | Red Dust Road | Poetry | Creative Nonfiction -
“It's a series of pages that have huge holes, or volumes, where words fly off the page into your imagination, into your face. It's kind of a book that has no rules.” Choreographer Wayne McGregor and visual artist Olafur Eliasson speak with Kathleen Flood of the Creators Project about Jonathan Safran Foer’s art book, Tree of Codes (Visual Editions, 2010), which was the inspiration for their 2015 dance performance. Foer’s new novel, Here I Am (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016), is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
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"We are handing out poems because we believe in literature and words to create a dialogue between people, and poetry is one of the most musical ways to do that." Members of the community in Charlottesville, Virginia share their favorite memories and experiences participating in national Poem in Your Pocket Day in 2010.
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Miguel Syjuco describes his usage of Velcro, file folders, and ten separate Microsoft Word documents for the construction of his debut novel, Ilustrado (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010). Syjuco speaks about the importance of Asia Literary Review in Literary MagNet in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.