Poets & Writers Theater

In this 92nd Street Y recording, Kaveh Akbar, author of Pilgrim Bell (Graywolf Press, 2021), is introduced by poet Angel Nafis, and John Murillo, author of Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry (Four Way Books, 2020), is introduced by poet Terrance Hayes before reading from a selection of their poems.

“I’ve turned old. I ache most / To be confronted by the real, / By the cold, the pitiless, the bleak.” In this 2018 video from the 92nd Street Y, Tracy K. Smith reads her poem “Annunciation,” which appears in her new collection, Such Color: New and Selected Poems (Graywolf Press, 2021). Smith’s fifth poetry collection is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“The place was so deathly still and deserted that you might have thought the time long after midnight.” In this 2001 reading at the 92nd Street Y, the late W. G. Sebald reads from his novel Austerlitz (Random House, 2001), translated from the German by Anthea Bell, for which he received the National Book Critics Circle Award.

“Lorde is a towering figure in the world of letters,” says Roxane Gay in this 92Y virtual event celebrating the publication of The Selected Works of Audre Lorde (Norton, 2020), which Gay edited. Joining Gay to discuss and read Lorde’s poetry and prose are Mahogany L. Browne, Saeed Jones, and Porsha Olayiwola.

In this 92Y video, artist Shantell Martin creates a live performance illustration inspired by a speech Maya Angelou delivered at the 92Y’s Kaufmann Concert Hall in 1971.

In this 92Y video, Camille Rankine introduces Hanif Abdurraqib, who reads from his poetry collection A Fortune for Your Disaster (Tin House Books, 2019), and Timothy Donnelly, who reads from his poetry collection The Problem of the Many (Wave Books, 2019).

“These are people who are basically pulled all over the world, and they have various antecedents that are a bit everywhere.” In an interview with Parul Sehgal at the 92nd Street Y, André Aciman, whose latest novel, Find Me (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019), is a sequel to his 2007 novel, Call Me By Your Name, talks about how his cultural background has influenced the way his characters communicate and interact with one another.

“Whatever shall i do with my dead / my tombs & mausoleums / these potted plants tended by strangers...” Mahogany L. Browne reads “for my dead & loved ones” and “Blood Rhythms - Blood Currents - Black N’ Blue Stylin’” by Ntozake Shange, and her own poem “Black Girl Magic” at a tribute for Shange at New York City’s 92nd Street Y.

In this 92nd Street Y video, Mahogany L. Browne reads poems from her books Black Girl Magic (Roaring Brook Press, 2018) and Kissing Caskets (YesYes Books, 2017). Her forthcoming book, Woke: A Young Poet’s Call to Justice, will be out in March from Roaring Brook Press.

“I wish I could tell you that they are like seeds as they wish to be.” In this video Bernard Ferguson, one of the winners of 92Y’s 2019 Discovery Poetry Contest, reads his poem “When a Grave Swells.”

“I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed...” In this animated video, the late Mary Oliver reads her poem “The Summer Day” recorded from a 2012 92Y reading.

“From the window I watched older men push carts between stopped cars...” In this video Alfredo Aguilar, one of the winners of 92Y’s 2019 Discovery Poetry Contest, reads his poem “My Mother Drove Us Into Tijuana for Dentistry.”

“You don’t need a lot of sensitivity or soul to feel moved by a redwood forest,” says Richard Powers about the origins of his Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, The Overstory (Norton, 2018). In this 92nd Street Y video, Powers joins Barbara Kingsolver, author of the novel Unsheltered (HarperCollins, 2018), for a reading and conversation with Kevin Larimer, editor in chief of Poets & Writers Magazine. The authors were featured in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I have to wait a long time / for the softer voice of his own / to come through.” In this 2012 reading, the late Mary Oliver reads a selection of poems from her book A Thousand Mornings (Penguin Press, 2012) at the 92nd Street Y.

“I hear words spoken in the mouths of children, threaded in complex narratives.” At a 92nd Street Y event, Valeria Luiselli reads from her book Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions (Coffee House Press, 2017), which details her experience as an interpreter for undocumented Latin American children facing deportation.

“Now that your life nears its end / when you turn back what you see / is ruin.” Frank Bidart reads a selection of poems from his book Half-light: Collected Poems 1965–2016 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017), which is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Stories should not protect us, stories should expose us...” Israeli author David Grossman, who received the 2017 Man Booker International Prize for his novel A Horse Walks Into a Bar (Jonathan Cape, 2017) with his translator Jessica Cohen, talks about how all stories are multilayered and some can even trap us.

“I think it’s really important for writers to understand themselves as artists.” At the 92nd Street Y, longtime friends Eileen Myles and Chris Kraus read from their work and have a conversation about their life experiences and writing processes.

“I report, that is my profession. I report, as a loud noise testifies to a gun.” Upon the posthumous publication of Doctorow: Collected Stories (Random House, 2017), Ta-Nehisi Coates and Jennifer Egan read from E. L. Doctorow’s short stories in celebration of his life and work at the 92nd Street Y.

“I think that the biggest thing people need to embrace is discomfort.” At the 92nd Street Y, Roxane Gay reads from her short story collection Difficult Women (Grove Press, 2017) and discusses topics from writing and feminism to Channing Tatum with poet Saeed Jones.