Poets & Writers Theater

“We aren’t serious when we’re seventeen…” In this video, Samara Elán Huggins, the 2017 Poetry Out Loud National Champion from Georgia, recites “Novel” by Arthur Rimbaud, translated from the French by Wallace Fowlie. Anndee Hochman writes about Poetry Out Loud, a national recitation competition for high school students, in “The Poem Chooses You” in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Reading is an opportunity to see little aspects of the world and different periods that you can never access yourself...” Tom Rachman talks about how his literary inspirations, such as Dickens, Tolstoy, Virginia Woolf, and George Orwell, have evolved over the years. Rachman’s third novel, The Italian Teacher (Viking, 2018), is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Bianca Stone talks to Vermont poet laureate Chard deNiord for Poets Speak about her poetry, life with her family in Vermont, and her work restoring the house of her late grandmother, poet Ruth Stone. Bianca Stone’s third poetry collection, The Möbius Strip Club of Grief (Tin House Books, 2018), is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

David Tomas Martinez reads his poem “Hoodies” accompanied by musicians David Cieri and Mike Brown for the Gavagai music and reading series at Cornelia Street Café in New York City. Martinez is the author of Hustle (Sarabande Books, 2014) and Post Traumatic Hood Disorder (Sarabande Books, 2018), which is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this video, Tarfia Faizullah reads her poem “Self-Portrait as Slinky” for the Brooklyn Poets Reading Series. Faizullah is the author of Seam (Southern Illinois University Press, 2014) and Registers of Illuminated Villages (Graywolf Press, 2018), which is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Everything you live through changes you, inevitably, and I think as you change, your writing changes.” Maggie O’Farrell speaks about receiving Specsavers Bestseller Awards for four of her novels, including The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2007), and how she has evolved as a writer. O’Farrell’s debut memoir, I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes With Death (Knopf, 2018), is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“‘Yes, it’s true, there’s something thrilling, addictive even, about the idea that you’re living every moment only half a step ahead of death.’” Lisa Halliday reads from her debut novel, Asymmetry (Simon & Schuster, 2018), which is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“This is a novel about marriage and about what we owe one another and what you can expect from another person.” Tayari Jones speaks about her fourth novel, An American Marriage (Algonquin Books, 2018), and what she loves about bookstores in this video for Barnes & Noble. Jones shares her experience at Ucross in “The Writers Retreats Where Big Books Are Born” in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Children under, say, ten, shouldn’t know / that the universe is ever-expanding…” Cennemi Diaz, the 2017 Los Angeles County Poetry Out Loud winner, recites Nick Flynn’s poem “Cartoon Physics, part 1.” Anndee Hochman writes about Poetry Out Loud, a national recitation competition for high school students, in “The Poem Chooses You” in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Poet, memoirist, and novelist Jon Pineda discusses the Filipino American experience and his writing at the Library of Congress. Pineda’s second novel, Let’s No One Get Hurt (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018), is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“The soft dark rope of prayer and dream, its weight, what I pull, and am pulled by into night...” Aaron Coleman reads “On Surrender” from his chapbook, St. Trigger (Button Poetry, 2016), which won the 2015 Button Poetry Prize. Coleman’s debut poetry collection, Threat Come Close (Four Way Books, 2018), is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this video, Francisco Cantú reads from his debut memoir, The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches From the Border (Riverhead Books, 2018), which is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, for an event showcasing the 2017 Whiting Award winners.

In this short film produced for Voluble, a Los Angeles Review of Books channel, Tarfia Faizullah reads two of her poems. Faizullah, author of the poetry collections Seam (Southern Illinois University Press, 2014) and Registers of Illuminated Villages (Graywolf Press, 2018), collaborated with emcee and producer Brooklyn Shanti and tabla player Robin Sukhadia to create this video.