Poets & Writers Theater

“Would you agree it’s possible to be both enlightened and in the dark?” For the 2019 Blaney Lecture, an annual lecture on contemporary poetry and poetics created by the Academy of American Poets, Terrance Hayes presents “Survey of an American Century” and reflects on the last century of poetry at the Lillian Vernon Creative Writers House in New York.

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.

In this Academy of American Poets video, Rachel Zucker reads “Please Alice Notley Tell Me How to Be Old” from her poetry collection The Pedestrians (Wave Books, 2014) at the 2014 Poets Forum. Zucker’s tenth book, SoundMachine, is out today from Wave Books.

Jillian Weise reads her poems “Semi Semi Dash,” “Café Loop,” and “Poem for His Girl,” from her second collection, The Book of Goodbyes (BOA Editions, 2013), at the Academy of American Poets’ 2013 Poets Forum Awards Ceremony. Weise’s third collection, Cyborg Detective (BOA Editions, 2019), is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“So few grains of happiness / measured against all the dark / and still the scales balance.” In this video produced by the Academy of American Poets, Jane Hirshfield reads “The Weighing” from the new anthology, Here: Poems for the Planet, which will be published this week by Copper Canyon Press. The anthology includes poems by Margaret Atwood, Kwame Dawes, Ross Gay, Nikki Giovanni, Robert Hass, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Mary Oliver, and others.

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.

“Poems engage our imagination such that the confusion is not the end point.” Patrick Rosal, who won the Academy of American Poets’ 2017 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize for his fourth collection, Brooklyn Antediluvian (Persea Books, 2016), talks about the importance of art and reads several of his poems at the Loft Literary Center.

“Ginkgo, cottonwood, pin oak, sweet gum, tulip tree: / our emotions resemble leaves and alive / to their shapes we are nourished.” Arthur Sze reads his poem “The Shapes of Leaves” for Dear Poet, an educational project for the Academy of American Poets.

“Giving is, first and every time, hand to hand, / Mine to yours, yours to mine.” Alberto Ríos reads his poem “When Giving Is All We Have” as part of Dear Poet, an educational project for the Academy of American Poets.

“Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day.” In this video for “Incredible Bridges: Poets Creating Community,” a project developed by the Academy of American Poets in partnership with EDSITEment, Elizabeth Alexander reads “Praise Song for the Day,” a poem commissioned for the first inauguration of president Barack Obama.

"And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and I / thought, This / is the world I want to live in. The shared world." Naomi Shihab Nye reads her poem "Gate A-4" as part of "Incredible Bridges: Poets Creating Community," a project developed by the Academy of American Poets in partnership with EDSITEment, the educational website of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).

"What puts the mean in some of us?" Ada Limón reads her elegy, "Marketing Life for Those of Us Left," in this video for the Academy of American Poets. Limón's fourth poetry collection, Bright Dead Things (Milkweed Editions, 2015), is a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award.

“Then they all came a little closer / where he squatted next to his death, his shirt / glowing its milky glow...” In this vintage video from the Poetry Breaks series, presented in partnership with the Academy of American Poets, Sharon Olds reads her poem “Summer Solstice, New York City” at a Martha’s Vineyard retreat.

This short film, created by Manual Cinema in association with Crescendo Literary, uses puppetry to imagine the life of Gwendolyn Brooks and the inspiration for her poem “We Real Cool.” The film was produced by Poetry Foundation with the story by Eve Ewing and Nate Marshall, and music by Jamila Woods and Ayanna Woods. For more on Brooks, read “Grant Me a Voice, and Speaking Eyes” by Angela Jackson.

Nicole Sealey reads William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 6 and her poem “Even the Gods” from her debut collection, Ordinary Beast (Ecco, 2017), for the P.O.P series, which was was shot and edited by Rachel Eliza Griffiths in partnership with the Academy of American Poets. Sealey discusses poetry and craft with Dawn Lundy Martin in “Vagrant & Vulnerable” in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I know all the dark places / Where the sun hasn’t reached yet...” In this vintage video for the Poetry Breaks series, Charles Simic reads his poem “Summer Morning,” which he says needs no introduction. The Academy of American Poets has partnered with Leita Luchetti, who produced and directed the series in the late 1980s and early 1990s, to bring back these videos.

“In my own writing, I feel safest when I’m farthest from what I know.” Tracy K. Smith reads “Digging” by Seamus Heney, the poem she feels “invited her to start writing poetry,” and from “My God, It’s Full of Stars,” a poem she wrote about her father. This video, part of the P.O.P. series, was shot and edited by Rachel Eliza Griffiths in partnership with the Academy of American Poets.

“Don’t be afraid. Someone has walked this way before, all the world’s music in her hands.” Patricia Spears Jones reads “Discovering America Again” by Lorenzo Thomas, her own poem “The Birth of Rhythm and Blues,” and talks about what it means to be a literary citizen. This video, part of the P.O.P. series, was shot and edited by Rachel Eliza Griffiths in partnership with the Academy of American Poets. Spears Jones is the eleventh winner of the Jackson Poetry Prize.

“For me, poetry is a way of living in the world.” In this vintage video from the Poetry Breaks series, Lucille Clifton reflects on what poetry is and how it is not about answers, but rather questions. The Academy of American Poets has partnered with Leita Luchetti, who produced and directed the series in the late 1980s and early 1990s, to bring back these videos.

“I see myself in the shadows of a leaf.” Afaa Michael Weaver reads his poem “Self Portrait” and Lucille Clifton’s poem “My Dream About God” for the P.O.P. series, which was shot and edited by Rachel Eliza Griffiths in partnership with the Academy of American Poets. Weaver’s poetry collection Spirit Boxing (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017) is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.