Poets & Writers Theater

“I write, I free write, I type it in a computer, and then I start over from the beginning and then I add to it.” In this 2017 City of Asylum video, Yona Harvey speaks about her revision process, self-censorship, and the difference processes for writing poems, essays, and comic books. Harvey’s second poetry collection, You Don’t Have to Go to Mars for Love (Four Way Books, 2020), won the 2020 Believer Book Award in poetry.

In this video, Hafizah Geter reads “Testimony (for Eric Garner)” for the Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation’s Words We Share series. Geter is featured in Literary MagNet in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“In the dregs of August I watch the birds sprint,” begins Julian Randall in this reading of “Variation on a Theme of Genetics” from his debut collection, Refuse (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018), for the Write About Now Poetry reading series in Houston. A Q&A with Nate Marshall by Randall is featured in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine. 

“We’ve become enamored with unreality, and I wanted a work to embody that confusion and also to cut through the noise,” says Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright and novelist Ayad Akhtar in this Little, Brown video introducing his forthcoming novel, Homeland Elegies. A Q&A with Akhtar by Amy Gall appears in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“When things shut down, I was immediately feeling like what I want to do is make stuff with other people,” says Ross Gay about life during the quarantine in this conversation with artist Arista Alanis for Vermont Studio Center’s Six Feet Apart video series. A Q&A with Aimee Nezhukumatathil by Gay appears in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“The instructor is fairly intelligent and enthusiastic about the material but is unreceptive, even intolerant, of anything that is not a poem or a poem in prose form.” At the 2016 Creative Capital Retreat, Srikanth Reddy reads from his book-length poem Underworld Lit (Wave Books, 2020), which is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I was also writing a story that I wanted to see and that I felt in my own life.” In this Greenlight Bookstore video, Raven Leilani celebrates the launch of her debut novel, Luster (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020), and speaks about the journey to write the book in this conversation with Samantha Irby. Luster is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this video for the Black Lawrence Press Virtual Reading Series, Alan Chazaro discusses moving to Mexico to write, and reads from his chapbook, This Is Not a Frank Ocean Cover Album (Black Lawrence Press, 2019), and his debut poetry collection, Piñata Theory (Black Lawrence Press, 2020), which is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I want to say I was waiting but I don’t know what I was waiting for.” In this video, Barbara Jane Reyes reads from her poetry collection Letters to a Young Brown Girl (BOA Editions, 2020) for the Well-RED reading series, presented in partnership with Poetry Center San José at Works/San José community art and performance center. The collection is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Every hand that once reached / for me still haunts me at the most unexpected times.” In this video, Aimee Nezhukumatathil reads a selection of poems covering her time as a high school mascot, bad reviews of the seven wonders of the world, and The Incredible Hulk for Poetry @ Tech in Atlanta. A Q&A with Nezhukumatathil by Ross Gay appears in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I can make worlds. That’s literally my job, is to make worlds,” says Awkaeke Emezi in this American Writers Museum video. “Instead of searching for other people to give me a place to belong, I just bent one into existence myself.” Emezi’s latest novel, The Death of Vivek Oji (Riverhead Books, 2020), is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“the highest promise we could offer / was one to a land or man or idea / greater than we.” In this O, Miami video, Nate Marshall reads a poem from his new collection, Finna, out this month from One World. A Q&A with Marshall by Julian Randall appears in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“If a white girl tries to tell you what your brown skin can and cannot wear for makeup, just remember the smile of an axolotl.” In this video for Milkweed Editions, Aimee Nezhukumatathil discusses and reads from her debut essay collection, World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments, which was named the 2020 Barnes & Noble Book of the Year. For more, read a Q&A with Nezhukumatathil by Ross Gay from the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“If we want to see evolution, if we want to see this paradigm shift, we have to start being intentional about it, and I believe that starts with the word.” In this Philadelphia Inquirer video, Jeannine A. Cook speaks about opening Harriett’s Bookshop in the Fishtown neighborhood of Philadelphia, which specializes in the work of Black and women authors. A Q&A with Cook by Jennifer Wilson appears in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.