Poets & Writers Theater

“Bodies weren’t meant to last / but the reverb dance eternal.” Accompanied by the music of Rhythm Science Sound, poet Idris Goodwin reads “More Statues Need High Heels,” an ode to Prince, from his new collection, Can I Kick It? (Haymarket Books, 2019). The book is part of Haymarket Books’ BreakBeat Poets series, a publishing project curated by Kevin Coval and Nate Marshall that is committed to writing that “brings the aesthetic of hip-hop practice to the page.”

“the long, drunk room a darkened sanctuary. / windows blocked opaque to make day insignificant / light impaired.” In this short film, Kevin Coval reads “Ode to the Dive Bar” from his poetry collection Everything Must Go (Haymarket Books, 2019), illustrated by Langston Allston, which is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this PBS NewsHour video, NPR’s Maureen Corrigan and the Washington Post’s Carlos Lozada highlight their favorite books for summer reading, which include Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (Penguin Press, 2019), Jill Ciment’s The Body in Question (Pantheon, 2019), and José Olivarez’s Citizen Illegal (Haymarket Books, 2018).

“I come from the fire city / fire came and licked up our houses, lapped them up like they were nothing / drank them like the last dribbling water...” This Motionpoems short film, directed by Daniel Daly and starring Khadija Shari, features Eve L. Ewing’s poem “I come from the fire city.” from her debut collection, Electric Arches (Haymarket Books, 2017). 

“Your buttons can’t hold all the love / rippling up the middle of your ribcage…” José Olivarez reads his poem “You Get Fat When You’re in Love” from his debut poetry collection, Citizen Illegal (Haymarket Books, 2018). Olivarez is featured in “Wilder Forms: Our Fourteenth Annual Look at Debut Poets” in the January/February 2019 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this Chicago magazine video, poets Raych Jackson, Natalie Rose Richardson, and Jamila Woods read from their poems which are featured in the new poetry anthology, The BreakBeat Poets Volume 2: Black Girl Magic (Haymarket Books, 2018). LaToya Jordan speaks with Mahogany L. Browne, one of the editors of the anthology, in “At the Center of Hip-Hop and Poetry” in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this short film, Eve L. Ewing talks about her writing process and reads one of her poems for AIR Serenbe, the nonprofit artist residency program of the Serenbe Institute in Georgia. Ewing is the author of Electric Arches (Haymarket Books, 2017) and is featured in “The Whole Self: Our Thirteenth Annual Look at Debut Poets” in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Kevin Coval and Nate Marshall, editors of the poetry anthology The Breakbeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop (Haymarket Books, 2015), speak about the impact hip-hop has had on poetry and on their own writing.

“I fought every single day.” Roger Bonair-Agard’s collection of poems, Bury My Clothes, published in 2013 by Haymarket Books, earned him a spot on the longlist for this year’s National Book Award for poetry. In this video, he discusses his journey as a writer, rap as a poetic form, and what poetry can do for youth.