Take a look at the latest from our collection of over one hundred videos featuring award-winning poets in conversation, reading their own poems, and delivering lectures about the landscape of American poetry. Get updates when we post new videos by subscribing to our YouTube channel.
Established in 1946, the Board of Chancellors is an honorary group of esteemed poets who consult with our organization on artistic matters, elect the recipients of two of our annual awards, and serve as ambassadors of poetry in the world at large. This video series features talks and readings by the award-winning poets who have graciously served our organization in this capacity.
Latest Video: Naomi Shihab Nye
Videos in this series are recorded at American Poets magazine events. Launched in 1996, American Poets is published in April and October each year. A year’s subscription to the journal is included in all levels of Academy membership. The publication’s aim is to provide a panorama of the contemporary poetic landscape. The features in American Poets are written by some of today’s most acclaimed and influential poets, such as Kimiko Hahn, Patricia Smith, Craig Morgan Teicher, and D. Nurkse.
Latest Video: Kimiko Hahn
Videos in this series were recorded at our awards ceremonies honoring the recipents of the annual American Poets Prizes, such as the Walt Whitman Award and the James Laughlin Award. Recent winners include Tracy K. Smith, Robert Hass, Brian Blanchfield, Philip Levine, and Carolyn Forché.
Latest Video: Rigoberto González
The Blaney Lecture is an annual lecture series created in memory of former Academy of American Poets Board member Dorothy Gulbenkian Blaney by a gift from her estate. Past lectures have included talks from award-winning poets Elizabeth Alexander, Richard Blanco, Anne Carson, Carolyn Forché, Joy Harjo, and Susan Howe.
Latest Video: Sharon Olds
Each year during National Poetry Month we produce an education project designed to help teachers engage their students in the art of poetry through interactive activities and lesson plans that are Common Core aligned. In recent years, through projects such as Poet-to-Poet and Dear Poet, we invited young people in grades five through twelve to write poems and letters in response to poems read by some of the award-winning poets, such as Arthur Sze, Juan Felipe Herrera, Marilyn Hacker, C. D. Wright, and Toi Derricotte, who serve on the Academy of American Poets Board of Chancellors.
Latest Video: Anne Waldman, Dear Poet 2016
Each fall the Academy of American Poets presents a series of events in New York City that explore the ever-changing landscape of contemporary poetry in America. Poets Forum features discussions of craft and process as well as readings and talks given by the award-winning poets, such as Edward Hirsch, Naomi Shihab Nye, Mark Doty, Claudia Rankine, and Khaled Mattawa, who serve on the Academy of Amercain Poets Board of Chancellors.
Latest Video: Poets Forum Highlights
The Poet's View is a documentary series directed by acclaimed filmmaker Mel Stuart and features great American poets, such as John Ashbery, Louise Glück, W. S. Merwin, and Kay Ryan.
Latest Video: John Ashbery
Poetry Breaks is a series of poetry shorts featuring celebrated poets reading their poems. Shot in informal and personal settings, each piece welcomes you into an intimate world where the poet reades you one of their poems. This video series was produced and directed by Leita Luchetti.
Latest Video: Galway Kinnell Reads "Saint Francis and the Sow"
Curated and produced by poet and photographer Rachel Eliza Griffiths, P.O.P (Poets on Poetry) is a video series featuring contemporary American poets, such as Carl Phillips, Evie Shockley, Afaa Michael Weaver, Tracy K. Smith, and Cathy Park Hong, who read both an original poem and a poem by another poet, after which they reflect on their choice. They then answer a question contributed anonymously by a poet in the series, and leave their own question for another to answer. What results is an evolving, multifaceted conversation among poets about the art form.
Latest Video: Tracy K. Smith
Videos in this series explore the publishing process, from submitting poems to marketing your work, and feature talks by leading editors and publishers, including Kevin Larimer (Poets & Writers Editor in Chief), Kelly Forsythe (Copper Canyon Press Director of Publicity), Jaclyn Lovell (LIT magazine Editor in Chief), Ryan Murphy (Four Way Books Associate Director), and William Sieghart (Forward Publishing founder).
Latest Video: Ryan Murphy
