Poets & Writers Theater

“Poetry is a place where both grief and grace can live, where rage can be explored and examined, not simply exploited.” In this 2018 PBS NewsHour video, Ada Limón shares her opinion on why she sees more and more people turning to poetry in the search for “radical hope” in the digital age. Limón was named the twenty-fourth poet laureate of the United States today.

“I still believe that we listen more closely to a whisper than to a shout.” In this PBS NewsHour interview with Jeffrey Brown, Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Rita Dove speaks about history, rage, the power of poetry, and her latest collection, Playlist for the Apocalypse (Norton, 2021).

“The art of poetry for me is the art of composing a sequence of vowels, consonants, and sentence sounds that will seem moving, meaningful,” says former U.S. poet laureate Robert Pinsky in this 2014 episode of Cortland Review’s Poets in Person series, in which he discusses his beginnings as a poet and his philosophy behind writing.

“I’m carrying this for America, but for Indigenous peoples in particular,” says Joy Harjo about what it means to be the first Native American to serve as the poet laureate of the United States in this 2019 PBS NewsHour interview with Jeffrey Brown. A Q&A with Harjo about her new memoir, Poet Warrior (Norton, 2021), appears in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“When you’re judging a contest I’m looking for something to just knock me over, and that’s what happened when I read Natasha’s manuscript,” says Rita Dove about first encountering Natasha Trethewey’s poetry while judging a book contest. In this 2011 conversation at Emory University, the two former U.S. poets laureate discuss writing, mentorship, and literary ancestries. 

“At some level, I’m never quite sure how the poem is going to resolve itself and that I'm always in some way surprised—I make a discovery in the poem as I write it,” says former U.S. poet laureate Rita Dove in this 2009 interview for Big Think, in which she answers questions about poetry and her writing process.

“If we could just stop, and listen,” begins Joy Harjo in a conversation about how stillness, gratitude, and kindness can help heal America in this Super Soul Sunday video with Oprah Winfrey.

“Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you. / Remember language comes from this.”​ In this video from the Academy of American Poets, Joy Harjo reads her poem “Remember” from her 1983 collection, She Had Some Horses. Harjo has been appointed to serve a second term as poet laureate of the United States and is the first Native American to hold the post.

“This is how the past interrupts our lives, all of it entering the same doorway…” In this clip from PBS’s Articulate, former poet laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner Natasha Trethewey reads her poem “Letter to Inmate #271847.” An interview by Joshunda Sanders with Trethewey about her new book, Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir (Ecco, 2020), is featured in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this video, Pulitzer Prize–winning poet and translator Robert Hass reads “Okefenokee: A Story,” “Pertinent Divagations Toward an Ode to Inuit Carvers,” and other poems from his book Summer Snow (Ecco, 2020) at the 2019 Sewanee Writers’ Conference in Tennessee. The book, Hass’s seventh poetry collection, is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Is this love the trouble you promised?” Tracy K. Smith, who has been named the twenty-second poet laureate of the United States, reads her poem “Wade in the Water,” which will be published in a poetry collection in 2018.

Allen Ginsberg’s anti-war poem “Hum Bom!” is read by Bono and then discussed by U.S. poet laureate Juan Felipe Herrera and Harvard professor Elisa New. New is the creator of Poetry in America, a multi-platform digital initiative that offers professional development classes for educational practitioners, as well as free online poetry courses.

"Dinky planet on a skateboard of dynamite / Oh, what to do..." Juan Felipe Herrera, who has been appointed a second term as poet laureate of the United States, speaks about meeting young poets and reads from his most recent collection, Notes on the Assemblage (City Lights Publishers, 2015), at the 2016 AWP conference and book fair in Los Angeles. 

“but she / notices distant jagged / zones on fire where the Company battles...” U.S. poet laureate Juan Felipe Herrera reads his poem “All the Thoughts at a Football Game” as part of Dear Poet, the Academy of American Poets’ educational project for National Poetry Month.

“You’re gonna pierce the page and you’re gonna pierce infinity.” U.S. poet laureate Juan Felipe Herrera discusses the art of revision at Poets Forum 2014 with Naomi Shihab Nye and C. D. Wright, as part of the Academy of American Poets’ Chancellors Conversations.

"Poetry begins with hearing...begins with hearing the sounds of passion." In this first feature documentary of poet laureate W. S. Merwin, the poet and environmental activist shares his work and life. The film, directed by Stefan Schaefer, is available on VOD or DVD with a portion of the proceeds supporting the Merwin Conservancy.

Former United States poet laureate and Pulitzer Prize–winner Kay Ryan reads a selection of her work during her poetry keynote address in San Francisco at Poets & Writers Live on January 10, 2015.

Juan Felipe Herrera reads "Five Directions to My House" from his poetry collection Half of the World in Light (University of Arizona Press, 2008). Herrera was named the twenty-first poet laureate of the United States yesterday, the first Latino to hold the position.

"If I didn't have poetry, I would not have access to the most interesting part of my mind." Pulitzer Prize–winner and former U.S. poet laureate Kay Ryan speaks with the Aspen Institute and offers advice to young poets. Ryan will deliver the "poetry keynote" on January 10 at the Poets & Writers Live event in San Francisco.

In this TED talk, former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins shares poems from the perspective of two very different dogs and reveals what they really feel about their masters.