Poets & Writers Theater

“The loneliest people have the earth to love / And not one friend their own age.” Jericho Brown reads his poem “Labor,” which appears in his second poetry collection, The New Testament (Copper Canyon Press, 2014), in this video for the Dear Poet series, the Academy of American Poets’ educational project for National Poetry Month.

“I knew I was a god / when you could not / agree on my name // & still, none you spoke / could force me to listen / closer.” In this video, Meg Day reads “Portrait of My Gender as [Inaudible]” as part of Dear Poet, the Academy of American Poets’ educational project for National Poetry Month.

“Green spring grass on / the hills had cured / by June and by July,” reads Forrest Gander from his poem “Wasteland: on the California Wildfires” for Dear Poet, the Academy of American Poets’ educational project for National Poetry Month.

“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.

“Crisp new books fell open / in my tiny hands / like tomorrow’s gold...” In this video, Magdalena Gómez, former poet laureate of Springfield, Massachusetts, reads her poem “La Biblioteca Is a Doula” as part of Dear Poet, the Academy of American Poets’ educational project for National Poetry Month.

“but she / notices distant jagged / zones on fire where the Company battles...” U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera reads his poem “All the Thoughts at a Football Game” as part of Dear Poet, the Academy of American Poets’ educational project for National Poetry Month.

“Comrades, be not in mourning for your being...” C. D. Wright reads “Like Hearing Your Name in a Language You Don’t Understand” as part of the Academy of American Poets’ Dear Poet project. The poem is from Wright’s collection Rising, Falling, Hovering (Copper Canyon Press, 2008).