Poets & Writers Theater

“Whatever comes to pass: the devastated world / sinks back into twilight,” reads Rita Dove from the poem “My Bird” by Ingeborg Bachmann, translated from the German by Mark Anderson, at her study in Charlottesville, Virginia in this installment of the Paris Review’s Poets on Couches series. Get more inspiration from a writing prompt based on this poem in The Time Is Now.

“Dawn in New York has / four columns of mire / and a hurricane of black pigeons / splashing in the putrid waters.” In this installment of the Paris Review’s Poets on Couches video series, Monica Youn reads and discusses “Dawn,” a poem by Federico García Lorca, translated by Greg Simon and Steven L. White.

“The orchard grew excellent, // Good mass of apples assembling, one angel burned, looped / On the wire fence, in a bowl of gold most satisfactory.” Stephanie Burt reads Lucie Brock-Broido’s poem “Posthumous Seduction,” which first appeared in the Summer 2012 issue of Paris Review, for the new Poets on Couches series where poets read and discuss favorite poems that get them through during difficult times.

“Doctor, you say there are no haloes / around the streetlights in Paris / and what I see is an aberration / caused by old age, an affliction.” For the Paris Review’s “Poets on Couches” video series, Maya C. Popa reads Lisel Mueller’s “Monet Refuses the Operation” and speaks about how the poem brings her comfort.