Poets & Writers Theater

In this event hosted by the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan, poet and translator Sawako Nakayasu reads from her books Some Girls Walk Into the Country They Are From (Wave Books, 2020) and Pink Waves (Omnidawn, 2023), and talks about the creative repetition inherent to translation and her relationship to improvisational forms in music and dance.

In this 2013 video, Lyn Hejinian reads from her book The Book of a Thousand Eyes (Omnidawn, 2012) for the Lunch Poem reading series at the University of California in Berkeley, where she was Professor and John F. Hotchkis Chair Emerita. Hejinian died at the age of eighty-two on February 24, 2024.

“Praise your capacity for birth / fluid currents and trenchant darkness.” In this short film directed by Justyn Ah Chong, poet Craig Santos Perez reads “Praise Song for Oceania,” which appears in his collection Habitat Threshold (Omnidawn, 2020). Perez’s latest collection, from unincorporated territory [lukao] (Omnidawn, 2023), the fourth in an ongoing series about his homeland of the Pacific Island of Guåhan (Guam), won the National Book Award in poetry.

“Maybe when we say love, we mean a safe place to fall apart.” Jason Bayani reads his poem “Kein/Muenchen,” which appears in his collection Locus (Omnidawn, 2019), in this Button Poetry Live reading in 2019.

“To be seen and not / heard, herded, and yet, / heralded—ambidoxic / harem, primary colors-studded...” Tyrone Williams reads “Alhambra,” “taškīl,” and “The D.I.Y. Archive” from his poetry collection As iZ (Omnidawn, 2018) in this third installment of ENCLAVE, a virtual series of readings by contemporary innovative poets curated by Rae Armantrout and Jeanne Heuving.

“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.

“What may exist between appearance, and disappearance, between sound and silence, as something that is nearly nothing…” Diana Khoi Nguyen, a finalist for the 2018 National Book Award in poetry, reads from her debut poetry collection, Ghost Of (Omnidawn Publishing, 2018). Nguyen is featured in “Wilder Forms: Our Fourteenth Annual Look at Debut Poets” in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Artificial is the only way to fly.” In this 2013 video, Cyrus Console reads a selection of poems from his books The Odicy (Omnidawn, 2011) and Brief Under Water (Burning Deck, 2008). His first nonfiction book, Romanian Notebook (FSG Originals, 2017), is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Guam is air-conditioned, Guam is updating its Facebook status, Guam is a punch line in Hollywood movie jokes...” Craig Santos Perez, a 2016 Lannan Literary Awards and Fellowships honoree and recipient of the 2010 Poets & Writers California Writers Exchange Award for poetry, reads from his award-winning collection, from unincorporated territory [guma'] (Omnidawn, 2014).