Poets & Writers Theater

“The minute I was born I was not just myself, but the memory of someone else,” reads Hilton Als from his essay collection White Girls, published in 2014 by McSweeney’s and reprinted in 2019 by Penguin Books, in this video in which he tells the story of how he got his name.

“Writing can be beautiful, witty, and entertaining but it’s a serious commitment.” In this 2019 Louisiana Literature interview, Anne Waldman shares her advice to aspiring writers with emphasis on the importance of reading widely and respecting the act of writing.

“Much like his life, Neruda’s poems bridged romance and revolution by emphasizing the everyday moments worth fighting for.” Author Ilan Stavans narrates this TED-Ed animated film about the life and poetry of Pablo Neruda, directed by Ivana Bosnjak and Thomas Johnson.

“These New York City Pigeons / cooing in the air shaft / are responsible for me.” Timothy Liu reads Jayne Cortez’s poem “These New York City Pigeons” and two poems from his latest book, Let It Ride (Saturnalia Books, 2019), for the Poets House Hard Hat Reading series.

“You were not always just a You. I was whole—a symbiotic relationship between my best and worst parts—and then, in one sense of the definition, I was cleaved.” In this reading at the Kelly Writers House in 2020, Carmen Maria Machado reads from her debut memoir, In the Dream House (Graywolf Press, 2019).

“Maybe when we say love, we mean a safe place to fall apart.” Jason Bayani reads his poem “Kein/Muenchen,” which appears in his collection Locus (Omnidawn, 2019), in this Button Poetry Live reading in 2019.

“Scientists say the average human/ life gets three months longer every year. / By this math, death will be optional,” reads Nicole Sealey from her poem “The First Person Who Will Live to Be One Hundred and Fifty Years Old Has Already Been Born,” which appears in her collection Ordinary Beast (Ecco, 2017), in this reading with Morgan Parker, author of Magical Negro (Tin House Books, 2019), at Scripps College.

Jan-Henry Gray talks about recipe poems and the structural parallels between poetry and cooking in this short film by Talia Sadie Feder. Gray’s debut poetry collection, Documents (BOA Editions, 2019), is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In celebration of Walt Whitman’s bicentennial birthday on May 31 of 2019, Brooklyn residents—including Mahogany L. Browne, Jason Koo, Gregory Pardlo, Ben Purkert, and Brooklyn poet laureate Tina Chang—recite his 1856 poem “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” from Leaves of Grass in various neighborhoods and libraries throughout the borough. This video was produced by the Brooklyn Public Library.

“Writing without purpose just becomes aimless words on the page,” says Roxane Gay offering advice on where to begin when starting a new piece of writing in this excerpt from a Skillshare class.

“Alzheimer’s patients sing every lyric to their favorite songs, / and this casual act becomes a dance with defiance.” In this video, Theresa Lola reads “Sing With Me and Do Not Die of Thirst” from her debut poetry collection, In Search of Equilibrium (Nine Arches Press, 2019), for Ours Poetica, a series produced by the Poetry Foundation in collaboration with Complexly.

“Quiet thinking is like a current in the sea and moves freely until it’s disturbed by its own voice, and then it becomes a music each individual sings when speaking. This is what we hear when we hear Ilya read,” says poet Fanny Howe introducing Ilya Kaminsky at this 2018 reading of his poetry collection Deaf Republic (Graywolf Press, 2019) at Harvard University’s Woodberry Poetry Room.

“Bread pudding was the first thing that I baked after I came out to my parents,” says Bryan Washington in this New Yorker video about his personal connection to the dish. For more on Washington, read his installment of Ten Questions, in which he speaks about his debut story collection, Lot (Riverhead Books, 2019).

“In the summer of 1929, after completing his freshman year at Harvard, James Agee headed west to spend a few months working as a migrant farm hand,” reads Leslie Jamison from her essay collection Make It Scream, Make It Burn (Little, Brown, 2019) in this 2019 Harvard University event with writer and critic James Wood.

“The next time you stop speaking, / ask yourself why you were born,” reads Naomi Shihab Nye from her poem “Separation Wall” in this episode of Ours Poetica, a series produced by the Poetry Foundation in collaboration with Complexly.

“I’m carrying this for America, but for Indigenous peoples in particular,” says Joy Harjo about what it means to be the first Native American to serve as the poet laureate of the United States in this 2019 PBS NewsHour interview with Jeffrey Brown. A Q&A with Harjo about her new memoir, Poet Warrior (Norton, 2021), appears in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I had written two books on slavery, and writing about slavery is to be in the center of a very difficult psychic territory, and so when I started doing the research for this project, I was very hungry for beauty—and I think I discovered it here,” says Saidiya Hartman about writing her book Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals (Norton, 2019), winner of the 2019 National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism, in this 2019 reading at Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington, D.C.

“Discipline is a massive component of creating a body of work, and the further I get, the more I see that that really is true,” says Rachel Cusk in this 2019 interview with Tonny Vorm at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark. Cusk’s novel Second Place (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 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.

“Roberto was brown and his people lived next door so of course I went over on weekends.” Listen to Bryan Washington read an excerpt from his debut story collection, Lot (Riverhead Books, 2019), for this Penguin Random House video series, which encourages listening to audiobooks before bed to help with sleep.