Poets & Writers Theater

“You knew that she was motivated by the basic concept that we’re here for a short while, and we have to make sure we make it about something larger than just ourselves.” In this video from the 2020 National Book Awards Ceremony, authors and colleagues speak about the influence of Carolyn Reidy, the late president and CEO of Simon & Schuster, who was honored with the National Book Foundation’s 2020 Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community. Reidy died on May 12, 2020 at the age of seventy-one.

“When people say nothing has changed, we’re trying to say through March, come and walk in my shoes.” In this 2013 Politics and Prose Bookstore video, the late congressman and author John Lewis speaks about the personal experiences that led to the creation of his award–winning graphic memoir trilogy March, cowritten by Andrew Aydin and illustrated and lettered by Nate Powell. Lewis died at the age of eighty on July 17, 2020.

“Whatever shall i do with my dead / my tombs & mausoleums / these potted plants tended by strangers...” Mahogany L. Browne reads “for my dead & loved ones” and “Blood Rhythms - Blood Currents - Black N’ Blue Stylin’” by Ntozake Shange, and her own poem “Black Girl Magic” at a tribute for Shange at New York City’s 92nd Street Y.

“Toni Morrison was her words, she is her words, and her words were often confrontational. She spoke the unspoken. She probed the unexplored.” At a memorial celebrating the life and legacy of Toni Morrison held at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York City, Oprah Winfrey speaks about her friendship with the late author and reads a powerful excerpt from Song of Solomon.

“Language alone protects us from the scariness of things with no names.” The life of Nobel laureate and Pulitzer Prize–winning author Toni Morrison is remembered through this 2004 interview for CBS Sunday Morning highlighting what was most important to her: being a mother and a writer. Morrison died at the age of eighty-eight on August 5, 2019.

“When I did begin to make connections with poets, everything opened up for me,” says the late Holly Prado in this Poetry.LA video interviewing noted Southern California poets, including William Archila, Chiwan Choi, Marcia de la O, and Douglas Kearney, on how they got started in their writing careers. Prado died at the age of eighty-one on June 14, 2019.

“I want to live a life of free imagination.” In this video, Binyavanga Wainaina describes his dream for Africans to tell their own stories and be set free of certain traditional systems and structures. The Kenyan author and gay rights activist, who won the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2002, died at the age of forty-eight on May 21, 2019. For more from his work, read an excerpt from his memoir, One Day I Will Write About This Place (Graywolf Press, 2011).

“I have to wait a long time / for the softer voice of his own / to come through.” In this 2012 reading, the late Mary Oliver reads a selection of poems from her book A Thousand Mornings (Penguin Press, 2012) at the 92nd Street Y.

“The freedom an oak tree knows. / That is built at night by stars.” In this video, Linda Gregg reads “The Weight” and “Alone With the Goddess” from her poetry collection All of It Singing (Graywolf Press, 2008) at the 2006 Dodge Poetry Festival. Gregg died at the age of seventy-six on March 20, 2019.

“Look at the old house in the dawn rain / all the flowers are forms of water…” In this excerpt from the documentary Even Though the Whole World Is Burning, the late W. S. Merwin reads his poem “Rain Light.” Merwin’s final collection, Garden Time (Copper Canyon Press, 2016), was featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“There’s something in the lyric moment that really ruptures the taken for granted-ness of the world.” Meena Alexander discusses her writing process, artistic collaborations, and the sensory experience of being a poet in this 2015 interview for CUNY TV. The author of five books of poetry, including most recently Atmospheric Embroidery (TriQuarterly Books, 2018), Alexander died at the age of sixty-seven on November 21, 2018.

“That was one of the freakiest experiences of my life. I was earning a living as a writer.” In this 2013 video for Open Road Media, screenwriter, playwright, and novelist William Goldman speaks about publishing his first novel, his experiences in the movie business, and his fame in dental offices. The author of the novels Marathon Man (Delacorte Press, 1974) and The Princess Bride (Harcourt Brace, 1973) died at the age of eighty-seven on November 16, 2018.

“I was a happy young woman and I just happened to write poetry…” Ntozake Shange speaks about her surprise at the impact of her poetry and the film adaptation of her choreopoem “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf” in this interview with Reelblack at the Art Sanctuary of Philadelphia in 2010. The poet, novelist, and playwright died on October 27, 2018 at the age of seventy.

In this video, V. S. Naipaul accepts the 2001 Nobel Prize in Literature and reads his speech at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm. Described by the Swedish Academy as “a literary circumnavigator,” the prolific author published more than a dozen novels and several nonfiction books. Naipaul died at the age of eighty-five on August 11, 2018.

In this 2009 interview with poet Elizabeth Spires, former U.S. poet laureate Donald Hall reads poems and speaks about the writing life. For more Hall, read “Turning Time Around: A Profile of Donald Hall” by contributor John Freeman from the November/December 2014 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine. Hall passed away on June 23, 2018 at the age of eighty-nine.

“I look back, just with a little wonder. Wonder that I stuck with this thing.” In this 2004 interview with Jeffrey Brown for PBS NewsHour, Philip Roth reflects on his writing career and the role of a writer. Roth died at the age of eighty-five on May 22, 2018.

This independent documentary film directed by Oscar Corral explores Tom Wolfe’s writing life and his fourth novel, Back to Blood (Little, Brown, 2012), which is set in Miami and focuses on the subject of immigration. Wolfe died at the age of eighty-seven on May 14, 2018.

In this 2013 video, Lucie Brock-Broido reads her poem “You Have Harnessed Yourself Ridiculously to This World” from her collection Stay, Illusion (Knopf, 2013), which was a finalist for the 2013 National Book Award in poetry. Brock-Broido died on March 6, 2018 at the age of sixty-one.

“I come here to talk about metaphor, language, and reality—not too ambitious.” In this 2013 TEDx Talk, the late Daniel Menaker speaks about his mother, who was an editor at Fortune magazine, his love of language, the significance of metaphor, and how phrases become clichés. The venerable writer and editor died at the age of seventy-nine on October 26, 2020.

In an interview with Web of Stories, poet and memoirist Donald Hall recounts his first meeting with T. S. Eliot. Hall is the author of the memoir A Carnival of Losses: Notes Nearing Ninety (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018), which is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.