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A curated selection of videos, including book trailers, brief interviews, and other literary curiosities updated daily.
"Even in a few lines, a poem outlines a perceptual world. A reader or listener fills in the gaps, adding another dimension." In this TEDx event, poet Christine Stewart discusses the ways in which poetry can be experienced, as both a reader and a writer.
"I feel like I've always been taking notes. When I sit down to write, I'm trying to find a way to organize that mess, to find a form, to contain it, to control it." The poet and 2013 Pew Fellow speaks about her motivation to write and the themes that carry through her work.
"I am made of earth and with words I sing." Ilan Stavans, editor of All the Odes (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013), reads a poem by Pablo Neruda in English and Spanish.
From the Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada, Steven Ross Smith reads "Laden" from the sixth book in his poetry book series, Fluttertongue, forthcoming from BookThug. Read "Growing in a Poet's Garden: A Visit to Little Sparta" by Smith in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
"It really opens their eyes to a whole new way to look at the world, and it's a necessary way to look at the world—it makes you a better human." Teacher Emily Nielson talks about the importance of reading poetry at a young age and participating in community events like the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada.
Tarfia Faizullah performs a poem from her poetry collection Seam (Southern Illinois University Press, 2014) in a film by poet Jamaal May. Faizullah is one of the debut poets featured in "Breaking Into the Silence" in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
"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.
Brookline Booksmith hosts a reading and discussion with Celese Ng, author of Everything I Never Told You (Penguin Press, 2014) and Jennifer De Leon, editor of Wise Latinas: Writers on Higher Education (University of Nebraska Press, 2014). Read "Ethnicity and Craft: Creating Characters, Not Caricatures" by De Leon in the new issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
"It should absolutely, completely undermine who you think you are—that's the mark of art to me." David Shields discusses his writing practice and reads from his book How Literature Saved My Life (Knopf, 2013). For more on Shields, read "Art vs. Life: A Quarrel Between David Shields and Caleb Powell" in the new issue of Poets & Writers Magazine. Shields and Powell will discuss more on January 10 at the Poets & Writers Live event in San Francisco.
Poet Paul Muldoon muses on how poetry is taught to young people and can be misunderstood. Muldoon's One Thousand Things Worth Knowing (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015) is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
