Poets & Writers Theater

"I set out in this book to write beyond my experience. As Colum McCann says...'Write towards what you want to know.'" Sunil Yapa recounts wisdom he learned from his mentors, and describes the inspiration for his debut novel, Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist (Little, Brown, 2016), which is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Diane Williams reads seven stories from her collection Vicky Swanky Is a Beauty (McSweeney's Books, 2012) for the Franklin Park Reading Series in Brooklyn. Williams's newest collection of stories, Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine (McSweeney's Books, 2016), is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

"Sometimes you see the leaves as birds who have traveled all night and come to rest at dawn." Alicia Jo Rabins's poem "How to Travel," from The Divinity School (American Poetry Review, 2015), is interpreted in this short film with animation by Zak Margolis and read by Alicia McDaid. Rabins is featured in "Fractures Through Time," the eleventh annual Debut Poets roundup in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Corina Copp reads an early version of her poems from The Green Ray (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2015) for the sixth Antibody Series in 2014. Copp is featured in "Fractures Through Time" in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Watch the book trailer for Terese Svoboda​'s new biography of poet Lola Ridge, Anything That Burns You: A Portrait of Lola Ridge, Radical Poet, which will be released by Schaffner Press in February 2016. "The Art of Biography: Falling In and Out of Love" by Svoboda is in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“The asking was askance. / And the tale all told. / So then, in tandem, / Anathema and anthem.” Hannah Sanghee Park reads “And a Lie” from her poetry collection The Same-Different (Louisiana State University Press, 2015) in this video from the Academy of American Poets’ 2014 Poets Forum. Park is one of the debut poets featured in “Fractures Through Time” in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“There is a kind of formlessness to poetry, as much as everyone is obsessed with form.” Ken Chen, the executive director of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, talks about his personal relationship to poetry in a discussion at the Academy of American Poets’ 2013 Poets Forum. Chen is featured in “AAWW Continues the Conversation” by Arvin Temkar in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

"She creates an intimate space in which these bodies can connect," says Claudia Rankine, describing the poems in Voyage of the Sable Venus and Other Poems (Knopf, 2015) by Robin Coste Lewis. Lewis won the 2015 National Book Award in poetry for her debut collection and is one of the debut poets featured in "Fractures Through Time" in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Morgan Parker reads her poem "Black Woman With Chicken" for Pen Pal Poets. Her debut collection, Other People's Comfort Keeps Me up at Night (Switchback Books, 2015), was selected for the 2013 Gatewood Prize, and her second collection, There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyonce, is forthcoming from Tin House Books in February 2017. Parker is one of the debut poets featured in "Fractures Through Time" in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

"What was I telling you? It was something like this: The world was made exactly for us and we'd never have to leave it." Paul Lisicky reads from his novel The Burning House (Etruscan Press, 2011) for Rosemont College's MFA Reading Series. Lisicky's new memoir, The Narrow Door (Graywolf Press, 2016), is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

"The future isn't machines constantly slamming..." Corinna Copp reads her poem "Poor Wave" at the Poetry Project along with Miguel Gutierrez. Copp, author of The Green Ray (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2015), is one of the debut poets featured in "Fractures Through Time" in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

"I think ritualizing the act of writing is extremely dangerous to being a writer, because it's really easy to make the ritual the art, and you don't even notice it." Shane McCrae talks with fellow poet Dora Malech about tradition, accesibility, and process for Iowa City's Little Village magazine. McCrae's poetry collection The Animal Too Big to Kill (Persea Books, 2015) is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Natalie Scenters-Zapico reads "Sonnet for Your Nerves" for the Buttered Toast Reading Series in El Paso, Texas. Her debut collection, The Verging Cities (Center for Literacy Publishing, 2015), explores the relationship between the border cities of El Paso and Juarez. Scenters-Zapico is one of the debut poets featured in "Fractures Through Time" in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Rickey Laurentiis reads "Black Iris" from his poetry collection, Boy With Thorn (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015), winner of the 2014 Cave Canem Prize. Laurentiis is one of the debut poets in "Fractures Through Time" in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

"One of the wonderful things about poetry is that your body is the vehicle for its creation or expression." Jonathan Fink discusses his debut poetry collection, The Crossing (Dzanc Books, 2015), and touches on building a manuscript, the merits of poetic form, and the role of the poet in the twenty-first century. Fink is one of the debut poets featured in "Fractures Through Time" in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

"When I hang in the air it will be by popular demand." Brett Fletcher Lauer reads some of his poems, along with Christopher Sindt, at St. Mary's College. Lauer's new memoir, Fake Missed Connections: Divorce, Online Dating, and Other Failures (Soft Skull Press, 2016), is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

"A storm and so a gift. / Its swift approach / lifts gravel from the road." Phillip B. Williams reads his poem "Speak," originally published in Poetry magazine in 2013. Williams's debut collection, Thief in the Interior (Alice James Books, 2016), is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

"When we think of Asian American literature... my hope is that you have makers, but then you have people that are there to receive it." Sarah Gambito talks with Anna Alves, Melissa R. Sipin, and Jessica Hagedorn about the growing audience for Filipino American literature at the launch party for Kuwento: Lost Things (Carayan Press, 2015), a new anthology of Filipino myths, at the Asian American Writers' Workshop in New York City.