Poets & Writers Theater

“Human creativity is nature manifest in us.” In this TED Talk video, actor and author Ethan Hawke speaks about the importance of creativity, the necessity of taking leaps to express yourself, and how we turn to poetry for sustenance.

The poetry podcast Haiku Chronicles celebrates Poem in Your Pocket Day with this video featuring poems from Yosa Buson, Akiko Yosano, Allen Ginsberg, and others.

“It’s what poetry can do—it can take us to other places, in a moment.” Cynthia Nixon and other cultural figures including Yo-Yo Ma, Joe Biden, Sonia Sanchez, Shaquille O’Neal, Edward Hirsch, and Bono are featured in this trailer for the public television series Poetry in America. Hosted by Harvard professor Elisa New, each episode explores and interprets a single American poem.

Allen Ginsberg’s anti-war poem “Hum Bom!” is read by Bono and then discussed by U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera and Harvard professor Elisa New. New is the creator of Poetry in America, a multi-platform digital initiative that offers professional development classes for educational practitioners, as well as free online poetry courses.

In this 2012 video clip Patti Smith, Phillip Glass, Patti’s band, and Tibetan monks perform Allen Ginsberg’s poem, “Howl,” in honor of a visit from the Dalai Lama.

In Ferlinghetti: A Rebirth of Wonder, which opens tonight in New York City, director Christopher Felver reveals the poet's true role as a catalyst for numerous literary careers and for the Beat movement itself. The documentary features one-on-one interviews with Ferlinghetti as well as appearances by Allen Ginsberg, Dennis Hopper, Dave Eggers, and others. For more opening dates, visit the First Run Features website.

Directed by Alan Govenar, the new film The Beat Hotel explores the legacy of Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, Gregory Corso, and other American Beats who took refuge in a cheap no-name hotel in Paris during the late fifties and early sixties.

In 1966 Allen Ginsberg wrote the anti-war poem "Wichita Vortex Sutra" (composing it as he spoke into a recorder while travelling across the Midwest.) Twenty-two years later the poet met composer Philip Glass in a bookstore in New York City's East Village, a chance encounter that eventually led to a collaboration that yielded this piece, which is featured on Glass's 1990 album, Hydrogen Jukebox.