Ellen Bryant Voigt, one of our most acute poetic thinkers, delivers the annual lecture on the craft of poetry, in honor of Paul Zweig—poet, critic, and one of Poets House’s original inventors. This lecture will trace the techniques that Jarrell employed to “stiffen” the rhythms of idiomatic speech as he “brought them to book,” making the music that makes his poems so moving.

In the words of Carol Conroy, the memorization of a poem invokes "all the myriad acts of attention that create a poem. For that reason, memorization ranks as a profound cognitive, psychic and spiritual journey." Poems by Heart invites people to share that journey by reciting from memory the poems that they love. Each month participants memorize a new poem that someone else has written.

A benefit reading for Fence Magazine of Decreation, a libretto in three parts by Anne Carson, features performers Mike Albo, Kate Bell, John Kelly, Susan Minot, and Mike Nichols. Introduction by Anne Carson.

Longtime friends Marie Howe and Michael Klein discuss the role of memory in poetry and memoir, and the intersections of the two forms in their writing. Both will also read from their work.

Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney initiates an annual program on the art of translation. The series honors the memory of Katharine Washburn, the beloved writer, translator, and editor of the monumental World Poetry anthology. Mr. Heaney will read from and discuss his own translations, as well as a selection of poems from his newest collection, Electric Light
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