Poets & Writers Theater

“I spent most of my life trying to blend in. / Try to fade into the background. / Try not to be noticed.” Abby Orbeta reads their poem “Chameleon” (“Hunyango”), which has been translated into Filipino, for this Ours Poetica video, sponsored by Complexly and the Poetry Foundation.

“I learned young to be the smallest bullseye.” Arhm Choi Wild, author of Cut to Bloom (Write Bloody Publishing, 2020), reads torrin a. greathouse’s poem “All I Ever Wanted to Be Was Nothing at All” in this Ours Poetica video, sponsored by Complexly and the Poetry Foundation.

“Alzheimer’s patients sing every lyric to their favorite songs, / and this casual act becomes a dance with defiance.” In this video, Theresa Lola reads “Sing With Me and Do Not Die of Thirst” from her debut poetry collection, In Search of Equilibrium (Nine Arches Press, 2019), for Ours Poetica, a series produced by the Poetry Foundation in collaboration with Complexly.

“Listen to me. I am telling you / a true thing. This is the only kingdom.” In this installment of Ours Poetica, a series produced by the Poetry Foundation in collaboration with Complexly, chef and author of Salt Fat Acid Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking Samin Nosrat reads Aracelis Girmay’s poem “Elegy.”

“I pick up the phone and send you some words / about my trans body,” reads J. Jennifer Espinoza from her poem “My Trans Body,” included in her collection Outside of the Body There Is Something Like Hope (Big Lucks, 2018), in this installment of Ours Poetica, a video series produced by the Poetry Foundation in collaboration with Complexly.

“I want to be / at least as alive as the vulgar. And if / some aficionado of my mess says ‘That’s not like Frank!,’ all to the good!” reads Jenny Xie from Frank O’Hara’s poem “My Heart” in this episode of Ours Poetica, a series produced by the Poetry Foundation in collaboration with Complexly.

“One morning, I decide to spin backwards around the sun, says Earth. / One step behind / another behind another, I watch the chipper dance / of human beings in reverse.” In this Ours Poetica video, Mike Birbiglia reads the poem “Earth (in reverse)” by J. Hope Stein from their book, The New One: Painfully True Stories From a Reluctant Dad (Grand Central Publishing, 2020).

“The next time you stop speaking, / ask yourself why you were born,” reads Naomi Shihab Nye from her poem “Separation Wall” in this episode of Ours Poetica, a series produced by the Poetry Foundation in collaboration with Complexly.

“I will tell you all. I will conceal nothing.” In this installment of the Poetry Foundation’s Ours Poetica video series, Carl Phillips reads the poem “Effort at Speech Between Two People” by Muriel Rukeyser.

In this video from the Poetry Foundation’s Ours Poetica series, Megan Fernandes reads “The Edward Albee Barn” from her second poetry collection, Good Boys (Tin House Books, 2020). For more Fernandes, read her installment of Writers Recommend.

“A blue against the easy clarities of sky, / a blue that eats the light, a bruise // ascended from forgetfulness.” In this Ours Poetica video, Eduardo C. Corral reads “Kinds of Blue #76 (Evening Snow)” by Don McKay from his collection Camber (McClelland and Stewart, 2004).

“It was Dre who once said, / You lose something every day / Your mind on the way to the store / The floor on the way to your mind…” In this Ours Poetica video, Jacqueline Woodson reads “You Lose Something Every Day,” a poem from Willie Perdomo’s collection The Crazy Bunch (Penguin Books, 2019). 

“Once on the back porch my lab barked / and barked. / he was always spooked / by something, garter snake, black / snake, rabbit.” In this Ours Poetica video produced in collaboration with the Poetry Foundation, Phillip B. Williams reads an untitled poem by Kayleb Rae Candrilli from their debut book, What Runs Over (YesYes Books, 2017).

“I was so struck by ‘Snow Drops’—it became sort of my prayer toward healing.” Leila Chatti talks about her connection with Louise Glück’s Pulitzer Prize–winning collection, The Wild Iris, and reads the poem “Snow Drops” for the Poetry Foundation’s Ours Poetica video series.

“The street shines with / mannequins in rhinestone. We walk / as if just friends.” In this Ours Poetica video, Oliver Baez Bendorf reads Rane Arroyo’s poem “Details as Revelations.” For more Bendorf, read his installment of Ten Questions.

“A detail in a pool of blood / the body gathered in an awkward kink / I dress myself in easy anything…” In this Ours Poetica video, Chase Berggrun reads “Chapter XXI” from R E D (Birds, LLC, 2018), a book of erasures of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

“Child, we move through graves / like eels, delicious with our heads first, our mouths / agape.” In this Ours Poetica video, Jane Wong reads her poem “After Preparing the Altar, the Ghosts Feast Feverishly” published in the November 2018 issue of Poetry magazine. Wong’s second poetry collection, How to Not Be Afraid of Everything, is forthcoming from Alice James Books in 2021.

Julian Randall reads “On the Night I Consider Coming Out to My Parents” from his debut poetry collection, Refuse (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018), in this Ours Poetica video produced by the Poetry Foundation in collaboration with Complexly. Randall is featured in “My MFA Experience” in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.