Poets & Writers Theater

In celebration of National Poetry Month, Seattle Civic Poet Shin Yu Pai and graphic designer Jayme Yen have installed a series of poetry installations reflecting the unique places and neighborhoods of Seattle. The featured poems by Seattle poets Kathya Alexander, Bryna Antonia (Á Thanh) Cortes, Cindy Luong, Joe Nasta, and Bryan Wilson were chosen for their themes of sustainability and place.

“I had a dream of having poetry at the intersections of New York, where all kinds of people pass through daily,” says Marie Howe, former New York State poet laureate, in this 2015 video about the inspiration for the Poetry in Motion: The Poet Is In festival. The annual National Poetry Month event is hosted by the Poetry Society of America and MTA Arts & Design, and features poems written on request by award-winning poets.

“Green spring grass on / the hills had cured / by June and by July,” reads Forrest Gander from his poem “Wasteland: on the California Wildfires” for Dear Poet, the Academy of American Poets’ educational project for National Poetry Month.

Watch this trailer for the Cadence: Video Poetry Festival, presented by Northwest Film Forum and programmed in collaboration with Seattle author Chelsea Werner-Jatzke and artist Rana San. The annual festival is a series of screenings, workshops, and discussions on the genre of video poetry held during National Poetry Month in April. Read more about the Seattle literary scene in our Seattle City Guide written by E. J. Koh.

“I huff a tint, then flex / To hustle some hard trusts up. / I have to come with u once more.” In this 2017 Austin Public Library video, Logan Fry reads his poem “Apparatus” for National Poetry Month. Fry’s debut collection, Harpo Before the Opus, was published in October by Omnidawn.

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 so wonderful…to sit down together, look into each other’s faces, and talk and listen, and then make something of it.” Marie Howe speaks about The Poet Is In, an annual program that brings more than thirty award-winning poets together to write individual poems on request. The 2017 event was cosponsored by the Poetry Society of America and MTA Arts & Design, and held during National Poetry Month in April.

"We are handing out poems because we believe in literature and words to create a dialogue between people, and poetry is one of the most musical ways to do that." Members of the community in Charlottesville, Virginia share their favorite memories and experiences participating in national Poem in Your Pocket Day in 2010.

“Crisp new books fell open / in my tiny hands / like tomorrow’s gold...” In this video, Magdalena Gómez, former poet laureate of Springfield, Massachusetts, reads her poem “La Biblioteca Is a Doula” as part of Dear Poet, the Academy of American Poets’ educational project for National Poetry Month.

“but she / notices distant jagged / zones on fire where the Company battles...” U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera reads his poem “All the Thoughts at a Football Game” as part of Dear Poet, the Academy of American Poets’ educational project for National Poetry Month.

The author most recently of Gossamurmur (Penguin, 2013) reads from "Manatee/Humanity" as part of Poet-to-Poet, an educational project from the Academy of American Poets for National Poetry Month 2014.

Last April Frank Bidart, who is interviewed in the current issue by frequent contributor William Giraldi, read Robert Lowell's "For the Union Dead" as part of Mass Poetry's second annual Common Threads group reading and discussion program for National Poetry Month. Bidart's new book, Metaphysical Dog, will be published in May by FSG.

For National Poetry Month, California-based DIESEL bookstore is posting a video poem a day. Today's: Philip Larkin's "This Be the Verse" read by Anna Kaufman.

Sandra Beasley, author of the poetry collection I Was the Jukebox (W.W. Norton, 2010), offers a fortune-cookie guide to the ways of poetry.