Poets & Writers Theater

“I was writing just about the experience of grief and life amidst dying...then I wanted to tell stories that made my parents alive, that brought them back to life and made it clear why this was such a loss.” In this A Word on Words interview, Margaret Renkl talks about her debut essay collection, Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss (Milkweed Editions, 2019), which is featured in “5 Over 50” in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“To deprivatize is not the same as to make public. A field is only natural or private after so much hurt.” In this short film, Jos Charles offers a preface for her poetry collection feeld (Milkweed Editions, 2018), which was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in poetry.

Ada Limón speaks about her poetry collections Bright Dead Things (Milkweed Editions, 2015) and The Carrying (Milkweed Editions, 2018) with PBS Books at the 2018 AWP Annual Conference & Book Fair. Limón is interviewed by Carrie Fountain in “The Poetry of Perseverance” in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“—my body lights up for life / like all the wishes being granted in a fountain / at the same instant—” Max Ritvo reads his poem “Afternoon” in a short video animated by Nate Milton for WNYC’s Only Human podcast. Ritvo’s debut collection, Four Reincarnations, is forthcoming in November by Milkweed Editions.

"As the writers we're publishing are succeeding, that's where we are succeeding." Daniel Slager, publisher and CEO of Milkweed Editions in Minneapolis, speaks about the nonprofit, independent book publisher and their mission to identify, nurture, and publish transformative literature.

"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.

“This brown girl from Chicago also loves the outdoors.” In the book trailer for her fourth poetry collection, Oceanic (Copper Canyon Press, 2018), Aimee Nezhukumatathil describes her motivation for writing and her passion for the natural world. Her illustrated collection of nature essays, World of Wonder, is forthcoming from Milkweed Editions.

In this video, Dan Beachy-Quick reads alongside Jen Bervin at Harvard University’s Woodberry Poetry Room. Beachy-Quick is the author of the essay collection Of Silence and Song (Milkweed Editions, 2017), which is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I gave my body to the mountain whole. / For my body, the clinic gave out petals inked with curses. / Refill, refill, refill, until they stopped.” William Brewer reads poems from his debut poetry collection, I Know Your Kind (Milkweed Editions, 2017), and takes PBS NewsHour’s Jeffrey Brown on a tour of his hometown of Morgantown, West Virginia to speak about the opioid crisis.

“I hope, Maxes, some good in you is of me.” The late Max Ritvo reads “Poem to My Litter” in a short video animated by Nate Milton for WNYC’s Only Human podcast. Ritvo’s debut poetry collection, Four Reincarnations (Milkweed Editions, 2016), is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Poet and live lit performer Parneshia Jones reads three poems from her debut collection, Vessel, published by Milkweed Editions in 2015, as part of the Page on Stage segment of Poets & Writers Live in Chicago on June 20, 2015.

The author, whose fourth novel, Jewelweed, is being published this month by Milkweed Editions, answered questions from the audience following a recent reading from the book at the Driftless Writing Center in Viroqua, Wisconsin. Rhodes, who was injured in a motorcycle accident in the early 1970s, was the subject of a profile back in 2008. Read "After the Flood."