Poets & Writers Theater
Every day we share a new clip of interest to creative writers—author readings, book trailers, publishing panels, craft talks, and more. So grab some popcorn, filter the theater tags by keyword or genre, and explore our sizable archive of literary videos.
-
“The best things that happen in poems are discoveries, they’re accidents; what comes out of our imagination, out of our deepest self, out of our memory.” In this 2007 PBS NewsHour interview, Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Charles Simic speaks about his childhood in Yugoslavia, writing about war, becoming a U.S. poet laureate, and the freedom in poetry. Simic died at the age of eighty-four on January 9, 2023.
Tags: Poetry | Charles Simic | United States Poet Laureate | interview | PBS NewsHour | 2007 | in memoriam -
“I know all the dark places / Where the sun hasn’t reached yet...” Charles Simic reads his poem “Summer Morning,” which he says needs no introduction, in this video for an installment of Poetry Breaks, a series created by Leita Luchetti in the 1980s and 1990s presented in partnership with the Academy of American Poets. The Pulitzer Prize–winning poet died at the age of eighty-four on January 9, 2023.
Tags: Poetry | Charles Simic | Summer Morning | reading | Poetry Breaks | Academy of American Poets | in memoriam -
“Joan Didion taught me that family was always part of the story, along with place, and that the writer’s job was to face the terror, beauty, banality, and truth inherent in being a citizen of both.” In this video, Hilton Als speaks about Joan Didion’s influence on his writing at a celebration of her life and work held at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York.
Tags: Fiction | Creative Nonfiction | Hilton Als | Joan Didion | in memoriam | 2022 -
“I never know what to say after someone says ‘that’s beautiful’ except to agree with them. For me, beauty is an end of conversation.” In this 2011 video for the Cortland Review, as a part of the documentary series Poets in Person, the late Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Stephen Dunn speaks about his writing practice from his home. Dunn died at the age of eighty-two on June 24, 2021.
Tags: Poetry | Stephen Dunn | Cortland Review | Poets in Person | 2011 | writing practice | in memoriam -
“I’ll dig in, / into my days, having come here to live, not to visit.” The late Denise Levertov reads poems from her collections Evening Train (New Directions, 1992) and Sands of the Well (New Directions, 1996) in this video from a 1993 event at the Lannan Foundation in Los Angeles.
Tags: Poetry | Denise Levertov | Evening Train | Sands of the Well | New Directions | Lannan Foundation | 1993 | reading | in memoriam -
“There’s something in people that is naturally story-like. You’re taking all this unformed, chaotic stuff and making sense of it.” Award-winning novelist and poet Peter Straub speaks about creating characters and his love of writing horror stories in this 2012 Open Road Media interview. Straub, who received the 2008 Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award for his generosity to the literary community, died at the age of seventy-nine on September 4, 2022.
Tags: Fiction | Peter Straub | interview | horror fiction | 2012 | Open Road Media | writing process | in memoriam -
“As I often tell students: What other people call revision, I call writing,” says poet, critic, and professor James Longenbach about writing his books The Lyric Now (University of Chicago Press, 2020) and Forever (Norton, 2021) as a writer-in-residence in this 2021 installment of James Merrill House’s video series Studio 107. Longenbach died at the age of sixty-two on July 29, 2022.
Tags: Poetry | James Longenbach | James Merrill House | Studio 107 | 2021 | The Lyric Now | Forever | writing process | in memoriam -
“Now the oil-fired heating boiler comes to life / Abruptly, drowsily, like the timed collapse / Of a sawn-down tree, I imagine them.” In this 2011 PBS NewsHour video, the late Seamus Heaney reads from and speaks about his final collection, Human Chain (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010). The Nobel Prize–winning poet died at the age of seventy-four on August 30, 2013.
Tags: Poetry | Seamus Heaney | Human Chain | 2010 | PBS NewsHour | interview | in memoriam -
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.
Tags: Poetry | Adam Zagajewski | Renaissance Society | 2009 | University of Chicago | in memoriam -
“My impression is that there is a much bigger audience for poetry than there was when I was young,” says the late poet John Ashbery in this 2011 interview with Belinda Luscombe for TIME Magazine on fame, poverty, art criticism, obscurity, and why he dislikes poetry readings.
Tags: Poetry | John Ashbery | TIME Magazine | interview | 2011 | in memoriam -
In honor of the seventh anniversary of poet Philip Levine’s passing, Tom Sleigh speaks about their friendship and reads “That Word,” a poem from his latest book, The King’s Touch (Graywolf Press, 2022), dedicated to Levine in this video directed by Ed Robbins. Sleigh says of Levine: “Phil’s intelligence was as brilliantly acerbic as it was heartbreaking.”
Tags: Poetry | Philip Levine | in memoriam | Tom Sleigh | The King's Touch | Graywolf Press | 2022 -
“There’s so many young people, the first time they start to think seriously about class, about sexuality, about gender, about identity, about vulnerability, about spirituality is through her work,” says Princeton University professor Imani Perry about the legacy of bell hooks in this PBS NewsHour video commemorating the influential critic, author, and feminist scholar and activist who died at the age of sixty-nine on December 15, 2021.
Tags: Poetry | Creative Nonfiction | bell hooks | Imani Perry | PBS NewsHour | 2021 | in memoriam -
“Hip-hop is Ralph Ellison, who once said the blues is like running a razor blade along an open sore.” In this audio recording from the 1996 album Flippin’ the Script: Rap Meets Poetry released by Mouth Almighty Records, author and critic Greg Tate reads his poem “What Is Hip Hop?” The influential journalist and author of Flyboy in the Buttermilk: Essays on Contemporary America (Simon & Schuster, 1992), died at the age of sixty-three on December 7, 2021.
Tags: Poetry | Creative Nonfiction | Spoken Word | Greg Tate | music | hip-hop | 1996 | in memoriam | Flyboy in the Buttermilk -
“Etel Adnan was trained as an academic philosopher but found her voice as a poet.” Watch this video for “Etel Adnan: Light’s New Measure,” a current exhibition of the artist’s paintings, tapestries, and works on paper at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. Adnan died at the age of ninety-six on November 14, 2021.
Tags: Poetry | Etel Adnan | Light's New Measure | Guggenheim Museum | exhibition | 2021 | visual arts | in memoriam -
“Our cries are heard as noise, / our suffering considered / natural. Native citizens, / we are not free / to roam,” reads the late Kamilah Aisha Moon from her poem “The Emperor’s Deer” in this 2016 Define: BLACK video.
Tags: Poetry | Kamilah Aisha Moon | The Emperor's Deer | 2016 | in memoriam -
“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.
Tags: Fiction | Philip Roth | interview | 2004 | PBS NewsHour | Jeffrey Brown | in memoriam | writing process -
“Great blue mountain! Ghost. / I look at you / from the porch of the farmhouse / where I watched you all summer / as a boy,” reads the late Donald Hall from his poem “Mount Kearsarge” in this 2018 PBS NewsHour video commemorating his death at the age of eighty-nine. For more Hall, read “Fleeting: In Memory of Donald Hall” by Christopher Locke.
Tags: Poetry | Donald Hall | PBS NewsHour | 2018 | in memoriam | Christopher Locke -
“To me all good poetry is experimental in some way,” says poet Susan Howe in this film about Emily Dickinson by poet and filmmaker Benita Raphan, filmed on location at the Morgan Library & Museum and the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Raphan, a Guggenheim fellow known for her short experimental films, died at the age of fifty-eight on January 10, 2021.
Tags: Poetry | Cross-Genre | Benita Raphan | Susan Howe | Marta Werner | Emily Dickinson | video poem | Up to Astonishment | in memoriam -
“If only we knew / what music is. / If only we understood,” reads Adam Zagajewski from his poem “Poets Photographed,” included in his collection Unseen Hand, in this 2015 reading at Trinity College in Cambridge, England. Recipient of the 2004 Neustadt International Prize for Literature and many other literary awards, Zagajewski died at the age of seventy-five in Krakow, Poland, on March 21, 2021.
Tags: Poetry | Adam Zagajewski | Unseen Hand | Poets Photographed | Trinity College | Cambridge | 2015 | in memoriam -
“You do not separate between dancing, music, writing, painting, it’s all one, it is expression of the self,” says Nawal El Saadawi about her journey to become a writer in this 2018 interview with Athena40’s Elizabeth Filippouli. The Egyptian writer and activist died at the age of eighty-nine on March 21, 2021.
Tags: Fiction | Creative Nonfiction | Nawal El Saadawi | interview | Athena40 | in memoriam