Poets & Writers Theater

“Perhaps the butterflies are mute because / no one would believe their terrible stories.” In this interview for the Poetry.LA series, Marcelo Hernandez Castillo speaks about late night talk shows, immigration interviews, the PechaKucha format, and reads from his debut poetry collection, Cenzontle (BOA Editions, 2018), which won the 2017 A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize.

Ramón García, author of the poetry collections The Chronicles (Red Hen Press, 2015) and Other Countries (What Books Press, 2010), reads his poems and speaks with Mariano Zaro for the Poetry.LA series about how his suburban childhood in Modesto, California has influenced his writing.

“Eternity opens with the dark back / of a jazz pianist hunched inside himself...” For the Poetry.LA series, Angela Peñaredondo reads and discusses poems from her debut collection, All Things Lose Thousands of Times, which was the inaugural regional winner of Inlandia Institute’s Hillary Gravendyk Prize.

“The best kind of fire that we can hope to be able to spark is one that creates light and also creates heat.” In this interview with Mariano Zaro for the Poetry.LA series, Douglas Kearney discusses performative typography, his play with language and sound, and how he came to poetry.

“Still winter. Snowing, still. Can it even be called action, this / patience…” Chen Chen reads from his debut poetry collection, When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (BOA Editions, 2017), and discusses his writing with Lisa Grove for the Poetry.LA series. Chen is featured in “The Whole Self: Our Thirteenth Annual Look at Debut Poets” in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.