Poets & Writers Theater

“The loneliest people have the earth to love / And not one friend their own age.” Jericho Brown reads his poem “Labor,” which appears in his second poetry collection, The New Testament (Copper Canyon Press, 2014), in this video for the Dear Poet series, the Academy of American Poets’ educational project for National Poetry Month.

“If only the sky were kind enough to lend me his blue coat.” In this video, Yuki Tanaka reads an excerpt from the title poem of his debut collection, Chronicle of Drifting (Copper Canyon Press, 2025), which is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this Villanova University Literary Festival event, Victoria Chang reads from her poetry collections Obit (Copper Canyon Press, 2020) and With My Back to the World (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024), and speaks about her ekphrastic poems and the power of writing in conversation with other artists and people in her life.

In this virtual reading from the Well Versed series hosted by StAnza, Scotland’s International Poetry Festival, and Open Book, Pádraig Ó Tuama reads from his collection Feed the Beast (Broken Sleep Books, 2022) and discusses the themes of place and nature within his poems. Ó Tuama’s fourth poetry collection, Kitchen Hymns (Copper Canyon Press, 2025), is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this recent installment of UC Berkeley’s Lunch Poems series, Sherwin Bitsui reads selected poems from his collections Flood Song (Copper Canyon Press, 2009) and Dissolve (Copper Canyon Press, 2018).

In this 2023 Lannan Foundation event celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Copper Canyon Press, Paisley Rekdal presents her hybrid collection, West: A Translation, and Jericho Brown, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning collection, The Tradition, reads a selection of poems, followed by a conversation with Arthur Sze and the press’s editor in chief Michael Wiegers.

“This year I turned my back to the world. I let language face // the front. The parting felt like a death.” In this About the Authors TV video, Victoria Chang speaks about her award-winning collection, Obit (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), and reads a poem from her new collection, With My Back to the World (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024), which engages with the paintings and writings of Agnes Martin.

“I sniff the tops of the rose heads / like a newborn’s scalp—fresh skin and hair / only a few days picked.” In this video, Diannely Antigua reads “I Buy My Monster Roses” from her second poetry collection, Good Monster (Copper Canyon Press, 2024), which is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Philip Metres, author of Fugitive/Refuge (Copper Canyon Press, 2024), and Jessica Jacobs, author of unalone (Four Way Books, 2024), speak about the coincidence of their shared book-cover imagery and themes of faith and ancestry in their new poetry collections for this episode of “The Sound of Ideas” morning program from Ideastream in Cleveland.

Amanda Gunn speaks about her debut poetry collection, Things I Didn’t Do With This Body (Copper Canyon Press, 2023), in this installment of the Line / Break series hosted by Copper Canyon Press publicist Ryo Yamaguchi. Gunn is featured in “Performing the Future: Our Nineteenth Annual Look at Debut Poets” in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Christopher Soto, author of Diaries of a Terrorist (Copper Canyon Press, 2022), talks about his origins as a poet growing up in Los Angeles and the connection between poetry and activism in this installment of the Line / Break series hosted by Copper Canyon Press publicist Ryo Yamaguchi. “Making Space: A Farewell Ritual for the Debut Book” by Soto appears in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

For this RaceB4Race Symposium event sponsored by Arizona State University’s Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Jericho Brown reads from his Pulitzer Prize–winning collection, The Tradition (Copper Canyon Press, 2019), and Fred Moten reads from his collection The Feel Trio (Letter Machine Editions, 2014). The poets discuss everything from their earliest memories of reading poetry to Prince songs and Shakespeare in a conversation moderated by Ayanna Thompson.

“Sorrowful news sings the telegram / and Lincoln’s body slides from DC / to Springfield, his third son, Willie, / boxed beside him.” In this 2019 City of Asylum event, Paisley Rekdal reads from her multimedia poem “West: A Translation,” a book-length work commissioned by Utah’s Spike 150 organization to commemorate the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Transcontinental Railroad. Rekdal’s hybrid collection, published in May by Copper Canyon Press, is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I left like a season’s first lover across a window, // slowly like a southern sun / diagonal on a work-back.” Tyree Daye reads “The Mechanical Cotton Picker,” which appears in his poetry collection Cardinal (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), in this Academy of American Poets video.

“I don’t want to sound unreasonable / but I need to be in love immediately.” In this video, Alex Dimitrov reads a selection of poems from his collection Love and Other Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2021) for UC Berkeley’s Lunch Poems reading series. “Twelve Films That Put Me in the Mood to Write” by Dimitrov appears in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“This is what was bequeathed us: / This earth the beloved left / And, leaving, / Left to us.” In this virtual reading for the Dire Literary Series hosted by Timothy Gager, poet Gregory Orr reads from his latest collection, Selected Books of the Beloved (Copper Canyon Press, 2022), which is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“To love a body not because it’s perfect but because it shelters you.” Watch this series of microfilms directed by Melissa Crespo featuring poems from Love Poems in Quarantine by Sarah Ruhl (Copper Canyon Press, 2022).

“This is not a work of history. It is a report full of holes,” reads the late C. D. Wright from her book One With Others: [a little book of her days] (Copper Canyon Press, 2010) in this 2015 recording of an event at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University.

“Dark and huge, it is frightening to be alive with a song in you,” reads Shangyang Fang from his poem “Serenade Behind a Floating Stage” in this Copper Canyon Press video promoting his debut collection, Burying the Mountain, which is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Revelation never comes as a fern uncoiling / a frond in mist; it comes when I trip on a root, / slap a mosquito on my arm,” reads Arthur Sze from his poem "Earthshine" in this 2008 video for the Lunch Poems reading series at the University of California, Berkeley. Sze’s latest collection, The Glass Constellation: New and Collected Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2021), is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.