Esteemed Housman scholar Archie Burnett and renowned poetry critic Christopher Ricks take stock of the life and work of British classicist and poet A. E. Housman (1859–1936), who released only two poetry volumes during his lifetime, the popular A Shropshire
Lad and Last Poems, but remains a “poet about whom poets write poems” (Ricks).

Kathleen Norris, an acclaimed poet and author of the best-selling classic Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, leads a round-table discussion on poetry and spirituality that includes close readings and in-class writing. Norris offers interpretations of poems in the context of Judeo-Christian and Buddhist beliefs as well as other spiritual traditions that are grounded in nature.

A celebrated poet and writer of spiritual nonfiction, Kathleen Norris considers the significance of Biblical themes in the work of contemporary poets, from Richard Wilbur and James Wright to Denise Levertov and Mary Oliver.

Two young Swedish poets read their work and exchange views on poetry and poetics with preeminent poet and essayist Charles Bernstein.

This evening marks the publication of new English translations of two books by experimental Greek poet and visual artist Demosthenes Agrafiotis: Chinese Notebook and Maribor. Michail Palaiologou, a composer who has collaborated with Agrafiotis, and John Sakkis, one of Agrafiotis’s English-language translators, join the poet for a performance and discussion of his work.

From reckoning and regret to recovery and redemption, these poets read and comment on poems from The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief & Healing, edited by Kevin Young.

Legendary New York School poet Eileen Myles joins novelist and poet Douglas A. Martin for conversation and a reading from her new book, The Inferno (a poet’s novel), a coming-of-age chronicle set in New York City’s poetry world and downtown queer
scene of the 1970s and beyond.

Born in India and a longtime resident of Pakistan, Afzal Ahmed Syed is an acclaimed master of classical and modern Urdu poetic forms. Syed reads from Rococo and Other Worlds: Selected Poems, his first English-language publication, and discusses Urdu poetry, Middle Eastern and South Asian history, and the politics of translation with poet and translator Mahwash Shoaib.

Performed by the Touchstone Center Theatre Ensemble in Teardrop Park South, Poets House’s beautiful “backyard,” this mythic story by Richard
Lewis features a wise crab and reveals how the activity of playing first began. After the performance, children will play with words in the making of poems.

A translator from the French of many children’s books and a renowned poet, Marie Ponsot shares her favorite fairy tales. Among her translations are the classic The Golden Book of Fairy Tales and Love and Folly: Selected Fables and Tales of La Fontaine.