Poets & Writers Theater

“It seems to me that prose, it may be lyrical, but it isn’t meant to be sung.” In this 2014 Academy of American Poets event, Edward Hirsch discusses the history and practice of poets writing prose with Toi Derricotte and Claudia Rankine.

“Poetry exists in a relationship so that it can speak to your interior life. That’s why I believe that reading is relationship.” In this 2019 5x15 Stories video, Edward Hirsch, whose latest collection Stranger by Night is out now from Knopf, speaks about the craft of writing poems and how “poetry exists to inspire the reader.”

“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.

"Robert, you've wasted so much of your life / Sitting indoors to write poems. Would you / Do that again? I would, a thousand times." In Robert Bly: A Thousand Years of Joy, director Haydn Reiss tracks the evolution of the prolific, mystical poet and his impact on American poetry through interviews with Louise Erdrich, Edward Hirsch, Tracy K. Smith, and others.

Kevin Larimer, editor in chief of Poets & Writers Magazine, leads a conversation with Edward Hirsch, Tayari Jones, Victor LaValle, Roxana Robinson, and Tiphanie Yanique about the personal, political, and professional reasons we choose to write while living in a culture, a family, or a community that doesn’t always value what we do.

Edward Hirsch speaks about American poets and poetry abroad at the Academy of American Poets' 2013 Poets Forum. Hirsch discusses his two new books, Gabriel and A Poet's Glossary, in the September/October 2014 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine. For more Hirsch, watch him on the Why We Write panel at the Poets & Writers Live event in New York City this past June.