Poets & Writers Theater

In this 2009 video, the late Polish poet, novelist, and essayist Adam Zagajewski reads from his work and answers questions from the audience for an event at the Renaissance Society, a contemporary art museum located on the campus of the University of Chicago.

“My parents raised me in a white-sided saltbox house, the sort children draw in crayon. Years before we lived there, it had been cut in half and moved across town. We never learned why.” Jeannie Vanasco, who is featured in “The Unknown Yet Inevitable: Debut Literary Nonfiction of 2017” in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, reads from her debut memoir, The Glass Eye (Tin House Books, 2017), at the University of Chicago.

“Artificial is the only way to fly.” In this 2013 video, Cyrus Console reads a selection of poems from his books The Odicy (Omnidawn, 2011) and Brief Under Water (Burning Deck, 2008). His first nonfiction book, Romanian Notebook (FSG Originals, 2017), is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

"In the hermetic almost dark / under the fluorescent dizz / I found her broken nerves..." In this video, Peter Balakian gives a reading at the Colgate Writers' Conference in 2009. Balakian is the winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in poetry for his collection Ozone Journal (University of Chicago, 2015).

"I saw some shit that needed to be spoken, so I just said it." This and other priceless quotes are featured in this moving collage for an event by the Guild Literary Complex and the University of Chicago celebrating the life and work of pioneering poet Gil Scott-Heron, who passed away last May.