Poets & Writers Theater

“When you’re looking at the transitions in your own poetry, one of the things to do is feel as you’re reading over your poem, ‘Am I bored? Do I feel lectured at?’” says Jane Hirshfield in this video from a 2011 Poets House event. “Take out some of the transitions. Allow more mystery. Allow things to stand on their own two feet.” Hirshfield is the author of nine books of poetry, including her most recent collection, Ledger (Knopf, 2020).

In this video for Poets House, Carl Phillips, whose most recent poetry collection, Pale Colors in a Tall Field, was published in March by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, reflects on his process for putting a book together, as well as his journey as a poet, teacher, and mentor. 

“I’ve never spoken to anyone about this. Until now, until you.” In this installment of the Poets House Presents video series, John Murillo reads two poems from his latest poetry collection, Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry (Four Way Books, 2020). For more Murillo, listen to his Page One author reading of “On Metaphor.”

“Yes— / I am opening myself for the black-horned galaxies / where the soul hides...” In this Poets House Presents video, Rachel Eliza Griffiths reads a selection of poems from her latest collection, Seeing the Body (Norton, 2020). For more Griffiths, read her installment of Ten Questions.

“Looking down from the window / into the bare augur sycamore tree / in the park across the street / the surprise is how full / of red-winged blackbirds it is…” In this Poets House Presents video, Ed Roberson shares new and unpublished poems still in drafts written during the coronavirus pandemic from his home in Chicago. Roberson is the recipient of the 2020 Jackson Poetry Prize, awarded annually by Poets & Writers to an American poet of exceptional talent.

In this bilingual reading presented virtually from three cities hosted by Poets House, Garous Abdolmalekian reads poems from his collection Lean Against This Late Hour (Penguin Books, 2020), along with Ahmad Nadalizadeh and Idra Novey, who cotranslated the book from the Persian. Lean Against This Late Hour is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I don’t know a thing about paradise || In my house nobody ever brought / it up...” Anna Moschovakis reads from her poem “Paradise (Film Two)” from her collection They and We Will Get Into Trouble for This (Coffee House Press, 2016) as part of the twenty-fourth annual Poets House Showcase in 2016. Moschovakis’s forthcoming debut novel, Eleanor, or, The Rejection of the Progress of Love will be released by Coffee House Press in August.

“I thought I was finished / with desire & what a relief.” In this video from Poets House, Cameron Awkward-Rich reads “What Returns” from his debut poetry collection, Sympathetic Little Monster (Ricochet Editions, 2016).

American Stanzas: 2006–2016 is a photography and mixed media arts show presenting work by poet and visual artist Rachel Eliza Griffiths. The exhibition is sponsored by Poets House and Cave Canem Foundation.

“The road I’m walking on now is howling and full of moon, / hopefully it’ll lead to myself, / hopefully they’ll take me home.” In this installment of Poets House Presents, Tyree Daye reads a selection of poems from his second poetry collection, Cardinal (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), which is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Bill Murray reads work by poets such as Billy Collins, Emily Dickinson, and Lorine Niedecker to an audience of construction workers who built the Poets House space in Battery Park City in New York City.

Actor Bill Murray read two poems by Wallace Stevens at Bubby's Brooklyn as part of Poets House's seventeenth annual Poetry Walk Across the Brooklyn Bridge last month.