Poets & Writers Theater

In this 92Y video, artist Shantell Martin creates a live performance illustration inspired by a speech Maya Angelou delivered at the 92Y’s Kaufmann Concert Hall in 1971.

“I orchestrate brutality but I never wanted to compose this symphony. We batons fell into the role masterfully though as the blue Beethovens adorned in badges used us to keep the beat on black notes....” In this video, Kofi Dadzie reads his poem “Baton” at Button Poetry Live in Saint Paul, Minnesota in 2018.

“Black women are crafting a collective response / to centuries of being under everybody’s water / We are a rising tsunami of fury come back / to take back what was carried away/without consent....” Staceyann Chin reads “Tsunami Rising” from her debut poetry collection, Crossfire: A Litany for Survival (Haymarket Books, 2019), for the Unbound series in Brooklyn, copresented by BAM and Greenlight Bookstore.

“And I dreamed of our world, a spinning ball of confusion, heart-wrenching injustices…” Patti Smith reads a poem and performs a cover of Neil Young’s “After the Gold Rush” in this video from the Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Smith’s new memoir, Year of the Monkey, is out now from Knopf.

“The men in my family wear masculinity like war medals. From birth, deem themselves protectors, providers, kings of everything their light touches....” In this Button Poetry video, Jordan Bailey reads his poem “Men in My Family” at the 2019 Rustbelt Poetry Festival in St. Louis, Missouri.

“If you ask me why representation in the media is important... / I will show you a woman who learned to dance until she / felt pretty...” On NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Concerts, Ashlee Haze reads her poem “For Colored Girls (The Missy Elliot Poem)” as part of Blood Orange’s performance of “By Ourselves” from the album Negro Swan.

“I can’t remember the last time / someone commented on my sunny disposition. / That doesn’t mean I’m not trying to juice / the sun for every holy drop.” In this video, Andrea Gibson reads “Living Proof” from their poetry collection Lord of the Butterflies (Button Poetry, 2018) at the Westcott Theater in Syracuse, New York.

“This poem is not a cry for help. This poem is not my broken pieces. And we are not done yet.” In this HBO documentary, a group of veterans and active-duty service members come together to write a collaborative poem and turn it into a stage performance. The film is directed by Sareen Hairabedian and coproduced by Jeffrey Wright and David Holbrooke.

Anne Waldman reads from the “Endtime” section of her longer poetic text at the 2017 Alternative New Year’s Day Spoken Word Performance Extravaganza at Nuyorican Poets Café in New York City. Waldman’s poetry collection Trickster Feminism (Penguin Books, 2018) is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“My family is a group of redwoods / that sought god instead of ground...” Samoan American poet William Nu’utupu Giles reads his poem “Prescribed Fire” at the 2015 National Poetry Slam. Giles won the National Underground Poetry Individual Competition in 2015, the first Pacific Islander to win the award.

“In place of a mother tongue, I grew a forked fin.” Franny Choi reads her poem “Split Mouth” at the 2017 Rustbelt Regional Poetry Festival. Choi is the author of the debut collection, Floating, Brilliant, Gone (Write Bloody Publishing, 2014), and the chapbook, Death by Sex Machine (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2017).

In this video, Jess Arndt’s action text “Collective Body Possum” is performed by Swedish electronic music duo the Knife during their 2014 world tour. Arndt, whose debut story collection, Large Animals, was published in May by Catapult, is featured in “First Fiction 2017” in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Min Kym talks about the life experiences that inspired her debut memoir, Gone: A Girl, a Violin, a Life Unstrung (Crown Publishing Group, 2017), and plays “Méditation” from the opera Thaïs composed by Jules Massenet on her violin. Kym’s book is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Morgan Parker reads a selection of poems including “Heaven Be a Xanax,” “Hottentot Venus,” and “Slouching Toward Beyoncé” from her second poetry collection, There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé (Tin House Books, 2017), with musical accompaniment by David Cieri. Parker’s book is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I still have all the keys that are of no use to me...” During the middle of his performance for NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Concert, Chance the Rapper reads a poem he was inspired to write for the occasion called “The Other Side.”

Marc Kelly Smith, the founder of the poetry slam movement, performs as part of the Chicago Icons segment of Poets & Writers Live in Chicago on June 20, 2015.

Virginia Woolf's novel Orlando: A Biography (Mariner Books, 1973), adapted by Darryl Pinckney, was transformed into a music theater performance by director Cathie Boyd's Scottish production company Cryptic. Pinckney is the author of Black Deutschland (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016), a new novel exploring sexuality and identity.