Poets & Writers Theater

“Stories should not protect us, stories should expose us...” Israeli author David Grossman, who received the 2017 Man Booker International Prize for his novel A Horse Walks Into a Bar (Jonathan Cape, 2017) with his translator Jessica Cohen, talks about how all stories are multilayered and some can even trap us in this 92Y video.

In this 92NY virtual reading, Lynn Melnick speaks about how Dolly Parton’s songs helped shape the structure of her memoir, I’ve Had to Think Up a Way to Survive: On Trauma, Persistence, and Dolly Parton (University of Texas Press, 2022), in a conversation with poet Deborah Paredez.

Introduced by Timothy Donnelly, Tracie Morris, Sophie Herron, and Ricardo Maldonado, the winners of 92NY’s 2023 Discovery Poetry Contest—Lucas Jorgensen, Saba Keramati, Jenna Lanzaro, and JJ Peña—read selected poems for this celebratory reading. “I open my mouth. Instead of a scream, a hundred / jasmine petals take wing,” reads Keramati from her poem “The Dream.”

Catherine Lacey reads from her latest novel, Biography of X (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023), and Miriam Toews reads from her latest novel, Fight Night (Bloomsbury, 2021), in this Christopher Lightfoot Walker Reading Series event at the 92nd Street Y in New York.

In this 92nd Street Y event, Ama Codjoe reads from her debut collection, Bluest Nude (Milkweed Editions, 2022), with an introduction by poet Nkosi Nkululeko, followed by Carl Phillips reading from his latest collection, Then the War: And Selected Poems, 2007–2020 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022), with an introduction by poet Shane McCrae. Phillips won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in poetry for his collection.

“We tend to write about things that surprise us.” In this 2011 clip from a 92Y event in New York City, Joyce Carol Oates reads from and discusses the experience of writing her memoir A Widow’s Story (Ecco, 2011) with poet and essayist Henri Cole.

“Nowhere else does the sky do what the sky does there / where the graves are filled with dirt the color of fire.” Terrance Hayes reads his poem “Arbor for Butch,” which appears in his National Book Award–winning collection, Lighthead (Penguin Books), for this 2010 reading at the 92nd Street Y in New York City.

“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.

In this 92nd Street Y recording, Kaveh Akbar, author of Pilgrim Bell (Graywolf Press, 2021), is introduced by poet Angel Nafis, and John Murillo, author of Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry (Four Way Books, 2020), is introduced by poet Terrance Hayes before reading from a selection of their poems.

“I’ve turned old. I ache most / To be confronted by the real, / By the cold, the pitiless, the bleak.” In this 2018 video from the 92nd Street Y, Tracy K. Smith reads her poem “Annunciation,” which appears in her new collection, Such Color: New and Selected Poems (Graywolf Press, 2021). Smith’s fifth poetry collection is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“The place was so deathly still and deserted that you might have thought the time long after midnight.” In this 2001 reading at the 92nd Street Y, the late W. G. Sebald reads from his novel Austerlitz (Random House, 2001), translated from the German by Anthea Bell, for which he received the National Book Critics Circle Award.

“Lorde is a towering figure in the world of letters,” says Roxane Gay in this 92Y virtual event celebrating the publication of The Selected Works of Audre Lorde (Norton, 2020), which Gay edited. Joining Gay to discuss and read Lorde’s poetry and prose are Mahogany L. Browne, Saeed Jones, and Porsha Olayiwola.

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.

In this 92Y video, Camille Rankine introduces Hanif Abdurraqib, who reads from his poetry collection A Fortune for Your Disaster (Tin House Books, 2019), and Timothy Donnelly, who reads from his poetry collection The Problem of the Many (Wave Books, 2019).

“These are people who are basically pulled all over the world, and they have various antecedents that are a bit everywhere.” In an interview with Parul Sehgal at the 92nd Street Y, André Aciman, whose latest novel, Find Me (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019), is a sequel to his 2007 novel, Call Me By Your Name, talks about how his cultural background has influenced the way his characters communicate and interact with one another.

“Whatever shall i do with my dead / my tombs & mausoleums / these potted plants tended by strangers...” Mahogany L. Browne reads “for my dead & loved ones” and “Blood Rhythms - Blood Currents - Black N’ Blue Stylin’” by Ntozake Shange, and her own poem “Black Girl Magic” at a tribute for Shange at New York City’s 92nd Street Y.

In this 92nd Street Y video, Mahogany L. Browne reads poems from her books Black Girl Magic (Roaring Brook Press, 2018) and Kissing Caskets (YesYes Books, 2017). Her forthcoming book, Woke: A Young Poet’s Call to Justice, will be out in March from Roaring Brook Press.

“I wish I could tell you that they are like seeds as they wish to be.” In this video Bernard Ferguson, one of the winners of 92Y’s 2019 Discovery Poetry Contest, reads his poem “When a Grave Swells.”

“I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed...” In this animated video, the late Mary Oliver reads her poem “The Summer Day” recorded from a 2012 92Y reading.

“From the window I watched older men push carts between stopped cars...” In this video Alfredo Aguilar, one of the winners of 92Y’s 2019 Discovery Poetry Contest, reads his poem “My Mother Drove Us Into Tijuana for Dentistry.”