Poets & Writers Theater

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.