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 virtual reading and conversation for the City Lights Live series, Douglas Kearney reads a series of poems in response to Fred Moten’s essay “Knowledge of Freedom” before introducing the poet who reads from his latest collection, Perennial Fashion Presence Falling (Wave Books, 2023).

In this virtual event for the Vocarium reading series sponsored by the Woodberry Poetry Room, CAConrad, author of AMANDA PARADISE: Resurrect Extinct Vibration (Wave Books, 2021), and Diane Seuss, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning collection, frank: sonnets (Graywolf Press, 2021), read from their work following an introduction by poet Ariana Reines.

In this video from the 2021 Windham-Campbell Virtual Festival, Renee Gladman reads from her book Ana Patova Crosses a Bridge (Dorothy, a publishing project, 2013) and collaborates in a performance with sound artist Val Jeanty. Gladman’s new book, Plans for Sentences (Wave Books, 2022), is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I think I lead with sound, in a certain way. There’s a percussive place that I go with my measure,” says Hoa Nguyen in this interview for Project 40’s Traces series, which documents the process and practices of Asian Canadian creatives. Nguyen’s A Thousand Times You Lose Your Treasure (Wave Books, 2021) is featured in Page One in the May/June 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.

“A green like no other green / in the dale, indelicate green or / green indecent, surpassing / the fern and sprout and April’s / optimistic leaflet some stop / to admire in nature...” In this 2017 video, Timothy Donnelly reads “Diet Mountain Dew” at the Gavagai music and reading series in New York City. Donnelly’s third poetry collection, The Problem of the Many, is out today from Wave Books.

In this Academy of American Poets video, Rachel Zucker reads “Please Alice Notley Tell Me How to Be Old” from her poetry collection The Pedestrians (Wave Books, 2014) at the 2014 Poets Forum. Zucker’s tenth book, SoundMachine, is out today from Wave Books.

Mary Ruefle reads a selection of her poetry and prose at the 2019 Newcastle Poetry Festival at the Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts. Ruefle’s fourteenth poetry collection, Dunce (Wave Books, 2019), is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“It was in the autumn—it felt like the perfect time to do this ritual, when everything’s changing to go to sleep for the winter....” In this interview at the 2018 Louisiana Literature festival in Denmark, CAConrad talks about how performing rituals after their boyfriend’s death gave rise to the poetry in their collection While Standing in Line for Death (Wave Books, 2017), which won the 2018 Lambda Literary Award in Gay Poetry.

“It is strikingly like they have removed their eyes.” Matthew Rohrer, whose poetry collection The Others (Wave Books, 2017) is featured in Page One in the May/June 2017 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, reads “Poem” for the Brooklyn Poets Reading Series.

Tyehimba Jess reads his poem “Another Man Done” for the Migration Series Poetry Suite, a collection of poems commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art in response to the exhibition “One-Way Ticket: Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series and Other Visions of the Great Movement North.” Jess won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in poetry for his collection Olio (Wave Books, 2016).

“The sentence was appealing, not only because it followed me from place to place, but also because it seemed to think about me. ‘How can I jog your memory?’ it seemed to ask.” In this video, Renee Gladman reads her work for the BathHouse Events Series at Eastern Michigan University's Creative Writing Program in 2008. Gladman’s new essay collection, Calamities (Wave Books, 2016), is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Composer Luis Escareño's multimedia performance piece is based on Maggie Nelson's book Bluets (Wave Books, 2009) and was recorded live at the Center for New Music in San Francisco. Written as a series of vignettes, the performance features text and narrated monologue adapted from the book, images, and music performed by the Living Earth Show.

“Frank grew crows for hands / it was a difficult childhood...” In this video, CAConrad reads a series of poems from The Book of Frank (Wave Books, 2010) for a 2013 reading at the Machine Project in Los Angeles. CAConrad’s poetry collection While Standing in Line for Death (Wave Books, 2017) won the 2018 Lambda Literary Award in Gay Poetry.

“Maybe he could tell I had a look in my eye / That wasn’t crazy anymore / Maybe he could feel the wild cool blood in me / And it frightened him / And he lashed out in fear...” Dorothea Lasky reads "I Had a Man" from her poetry collection Thunderbird (Wave Books, 2012) for the Milk & Roses Reading Series in Brooklyn.

"How the real blues claims every inch of the hungry mouth." Tyehimba Jess reads his poem "The Harmonica Lesson" and plays harmonica for the Page Meets Stage reading series in 2010. Jess is featured in Ampersand: The Poets & Writers Podcast, and his new poetry collection, Olio (Wave Books, 2016), is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Kevin Sampsell, publisher of Future Tense Books, talks with the editors of some of the Pacific Northwest's most successful independent presses about the kind of work they publish, along with practical advice for writers looking to submit their work. Panelists include Heidi Broadhead, managing editor of Wave Books; Natalie Garyet, managing editor of Tavern Books; Rhonda Hughes, publisher of Hawthorne Books; and Michael Wiegers, editor in chief of Copper Canyon Press.

The author of seven poetry collections, including Destroyer and Preserver (Wave Books, 2011), Matthew Rohrer reads "Over the Emperor City" as part of the Brooklyn Poets Reading Series at Studio 10 in Brooklyn.

The author of Twenty-seven Props for a Production of Eine Lebenszeit (Grove, 2003) and The Cloud Corporation (Wave, 2010) reads "The New Hymns" as part of the Brooklyn Poets Reading Series on September 21.