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.
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“Books sustain us. Books inspire us. Books fortify us. Books help us become who we are,” says poet John Keene in this video featuring National Book Award–winning authors—including Tess Gunty, Megan McDowell, Imani Perry, Samanta Schweblin, and Sabaa Tahir—speaking about why they believe books matter for the National Book Foundation’s Read With NBF program.
Tags: Poetry | Fiction | Creative Nonfiction | Translation | National Book Foundation | National Book Award | Tess Gunty | John Keene | Megan McDowell | Imani Perry | Samanta Schweblin | Sabaa Tahir | reading -
“We are the quiet street hours before doors open. / We are the first words, and the parting ones.” John Keene reads “Pulse” and other poems from his National Book Award–winning collection Punks: New & Selected Poems (The Song Cave, 2021), for this 92NY reading with Sharon Olds, author most recently of Balladz (Knopf, 2022). Keene and Olds are introduced by poets Dante Micheaux and Omotara James.
Tags: Poetry | John Keene | Punks | The Song Cave | Sharon Olds | Balladz | Knopf | Omotara James | Dante Micheaux | National Book Award | 92NY | 2022 -
In this 2017 event, poet and novelist Fanny Howe reads from her rewritten novel, The Wages (Pressed Wafer Press, 2018), and poet and fiction writer John Keene reads from his story collection, Counternarratives (New Directions, 2015), for the Woodberry Poetry Room’s Vocarium reading series at Harvard University.
Tags: Poetry | Fanny Howe | John Keene | Woodberry Poetry Room | Vocarium Reading Series | 2017 | reading -
In this video, John Keene reads from his short story “Cold” from his collection Counternarratives (New Directions, 2015) at the Poetry Center at San Francisco State University. Keene is a 2018 recipient of the Windham-Campbell Prize.
Tags: Fiction | John Keene | Counternarratives | New Directions | 2015 | Poetry Center at SFSU | Windham-Campbell Prize