Live Poetry Readings that are always fun, often funny, & occasionally philosophical as hell
+ Q&A with your favorite poets
Session #5…
…took place on Oct 24, 2024.
Kimiko Hanh & Emily Jungmin Yoon read thrilling new poems and charmed us all. They also answered your great questions! We’ll soon share the recording.
Kimiko Hahn has cast a wide net for subject matter over her ten collections. In the forthcoming The Ghost Forest: new and selected poems, she plays with given forms while creating new ones, and, in doing so, honors past writers. Reflecting her interest in Japanese poetics, her essay on the zuihitsu was published in the American Poetry Review. Hahn is the 2023 recipient of the Ruth Lilly Prize for Lifetime Achievement from The Poetry Foundation. She teaches in the MFA Program for Creative Writing and Literary Translation at Queens College, City University of New York.
Emily Jungmin Yoon is a poet, translator, editor, and scholar. She is the author of the full-length poetry collection A Cruelty Special to Our Species (Ecco | HarperCollins, 2018), winner of the 2019 Devil’s Kitchen Reading Award and finalist for the 2020 Kate Tufts Discovery Award. The book was released in Korean as 우리 종족의 특별한 잔인함 (trans. Han Yujoo, Yolimwon 2020). She is also the author of Ordinary Misfortunes, the 2017 winner of the Sunken Garden Chapbook Prize by Tupelo Press (selected by Maggie Smith).
Session #4…
…took place on Sep 24, 2024.
Major Jackson and Kinsale Drake read some of their classics alongside awesome new poems, and we asked them a few questions. We’ll soon share the recording.
Major Jackson is the award-winning author of six poetry collections including Razzle Dazzle: New & Selected Poems (2023). His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Poetry, and elsewhere. He is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair in the Humanities at Vanderbilt University. He serves as the Poetry Editor of The Harvard Review.
Kinsale Drake (Diné) is a winner of the 2023 National Poetry Series for her debut poetry collection THE SKY WAS ONCE A DARK BLANKET (University of Georgia Press, 2024). Her work has appeared in Poetry, Poets.org, Best New Poets, Black Warrior Review, Nylon, Teen Vogue, and elsewhere. She is the director of NDN Girls Book Club, a literary nonprofit for Indigenous peoples.
Session #3…
…took place on Aug 8, 2024.
Rae Armantrout and Francis de Lima delighted us with gentle & funny poems, and we asked them a few questions. You can watch the reading here.
Rae Armantrout is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize and The National Book Critics Circle Award (for Versed, Wesleyan 2010). Her most recent book is Finalists (Wesleyan 2022). Her 2018 book, Wobble, was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her other books with Wesleyan include Partly: New and Selected Poems, Just Saying, and Money Shot. A new book, Go Figure, and a chapbook, Notice, are forthcoming in 2024.
Francis de Lima is a Finnish-Brazilian poet and translator, currently living in the UK. They are completing their undergrad at Royal Holloway, focusing on the intersections between class, ecology, and poetry. They’ve collaborated extensively, mainly with Finnish underground artists, on projects like art books, albums, and performances at venues ranging from concert halls to backyards.
Chen Chen is the author of two books of poetry, Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency and When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities, both published by BOA Editions. He teaches for the low-residency MFA programs at New England College, Stonecoast, and Antioch.
Molly Zhu is a Chinese-American poet and attorney. Her work appears in Hobart Pulp, the Ghost City Press, and Bodega Magazine, among others. The poetry editor of Passengers Journal, she is the winner of the 2021 Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize for her debut chapbook, Asian American Translations (Cordella Press).
Session #1…
…took place on April 18, 2024.
We heard new poems read by Bob Hicok and Leigh Chadwick as well as bothered them with a few questions. You can watch it here.
Bob Hicok is the author of Water Look Away (Copper Canyon Press, 2023). He has received a Guggenheim, two NEA Fellowships, the Bobbitt Prize from the Library of Congress, nine Pushcart Prizes, and was twice a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His poems have appeared in nine volumes of the Best American Poetry.
Leigh Chadwick is the author of numerous poetry collections, including Your Favorite Poet (Malarkey Books, 2022) and Sophomore Slump (Malarkey Books, 2023). Her poetry has appeared in The Massachusetts Review, Salamander, Passages North, Identity Theory, and Pithead Chapel, among others. She is currently at work on a YA romance novel set around the Donner Party.