Poets & Writers Theater

In this Institute of Politics Policy and History video, A. B. Spellman joins a panel of poets, historians, and critics for a discussion of his contributions to literature, music, and the Black Arts Movement, and then reads a selection of poems from his new collection, Between the Night and Its Music: New and Selected Poems (Wesleyan University Press, 2024), which is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“if you can read this / you are alive.” erica lewis reads her poem “i’m no great pretender,” which appears in her collection mahogany (Wesleyan University Press, 2023), in this poetry film produced by City Lights Booksellers & Publishers with the author.

Abigail Chabitnoy reads from her collections How to Dress a Fish (Wesleyan University Press, 2019) and In the Current Where Drowning Is Beautiful (Wesleyan University Press, 2022) after an introduction by poet Peter Gizzi for this event presented in conjunction with University of Massachusetts MFA for Poets & Writers’ Visiting Writers Series. Chabitnoy is featured in Literary MagNet in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this installment of ENCLAVE, a virtual reading series curated by Rae Armantrout and Jeanne Heuving, poet Peter Gizzi reads from his collections Archeophonics (Wesleyan University Press, 2016) and Now It’s Dark (Wesleyan University Press, 2020), which is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“It is not what drove your body here like a stolen car. / why you abandoned it on this unreasonable ledge....” This Button Poetry video features sam sax’s poem “Gay Boys & the Bridges Who Love Them” from his second collection, Bury It (Wesleyan University Press, 2018), and is directed by Seth Moore and Cole Smothers with choreography by Matthew Bovee and Sarah Adam.

“There is so much time in the world. How many ways can it be divided?” In this 2017 video, Camille T. Dungy reads “Conspiracy” and “Natural History” from her poetry collection Trophic Cascade (Wesleyan University Press, 2017) at Syncopated Rhythms: A Celebration of African American Poetry & Music in Washington, D.C. Dungy’s essay “Say Yes to Yourself: A Poet’s Guide to Living and Writing” appears in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Poetry travels, you don’t need a lot of money to write it, you don’t need a lot of money to print it and distribute it.” Evie Shockley, a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in poetry for her third collection, semiautomatic (Wesleyan University Press, 2017), talks with City of Asylum about the accessibility of writing poetry and its long and powerful tradition.

“The keeper put me in the cage      with the monkeys / Because I asked to be / Put in the cage with the monkeys.” Shane McCrae, whose most recent collection, In the Language of My Captor (Wesleyan University Press, 2017), is longlisted for the 2017 National Book Award in poetry, reads his poem “Panopticon” for the River Styx at the Tavern reading series.

“dear existential fallacy, // i need you to be concrete. / you need me to liquidate / my account.” In this 2017 event at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, Evie Shockley reads from her collections the new black (Wesleyan University Press, 2012) and semiautomatic (Wesleyan University Press, 2017), a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize.