POETRY READINGS

POETRY READINGS

Poems performed by professional actors.

Subscribe Share
POETRY READINGS
  • Poetry Reading: INHERITANCE, by Filiz Fish

    Voice over by Val cole

    READ POEM:

    My mom likes to say she gave me her tongue—
    not the muscle
    but the ability to move worlds with it.
    She anointed me with her fury,
    her impatience,
    the power to gaze within your opponent
    and pluck their greatest insecurity
    from their chest.
    She birthed me in her...

  • Poetry Reading: IN THE HOUSE OF WILLS, by Frank Weber

    Narrated by Val Cole

    READ POEM:

    We drove for two hours
    to the badlands of Cleveland
    searching the streets and the alleys
    just to find our way
    to find a safe way
    into The House of Wills.

    We were met with armed guards
    all meant to protect us
    milling the grounds and
    defending the building and
    th...

  • Poetry Reading: I THOUGHT YOU WOULD BE FINE, by Sydney Severson

    Narrated by Val Cole

    READ POEM:

    Two weeks before you died-
    You were joking, laughing, and seemed alright.
    I thought you would be fine.

    We talked and joked and watched the skyline-
    From your hospital bed at half-light
    Two weeks before you died.

    As the day wound down, I saw no sign-
    And when w...

  • Poetry Reading: HONORARY ALIEN, by James Ph. Kotsybar

    Voice over by Val Cole

  • Poetry Reading: FOR SALE, by Laura Bota

    Voice over by Val Cole

    READ POEM:

    After much deliberation, Radu concluded his name was Merlin.
    Merlin was the greatest wizard of all.
    Radu had first been Houdini, the Master of Illusions,
    But all that magicians worked with was perception after all.
    Reality remained unchanged.
    A wizard, on the ...

  • Poetry Reading: BASTARD MINE, by Lakshmi Vinayan Subha

    Voice over by Val Cole

    Read POEM:

    He wasn’t adopted but made,
    Not in a womb but psyche.
    My son was a misborn,
    I never met his father.

    I was still married to my past,
    Yet I nurtured my son.
    Who feeds on my thoughts,
    Sparing nothing at all.

    While I drained every day.
    He bloomed to a manchineel...

  • Poetry Reading: A PLACE OF NO HOPE, by Sharnta Bullard

    Voice over by Val Cole

    Read Poem:

    I arrived at a destination that was far away from home.
    It was more like isolation. I felt alone!
    Drowning, watching water surround me on every side,
    called my parents every day and often cried.
    I searched for ways to escape this place,
    because with each passi...

  • Poetry Reading: WHERE I’M FROM, by Sheila Evans

    Narrated by Val Cole

    POEM:

    I’m from a Southern backyard —
    Magnolia grandiflora sporting huge white blooms
    Honeysuckles spilling over the fence
    Red roses soaked with the aroma of tea
    Hollyhocks springing up yearly into flowering towers.

    I’m from a Southern backyard —
    Mud pies being made beneat...

  • Poetry Reading: This Poet is Pregnant with Loss, by Elly Katz (interview)

    https://youtu.be/uzix0NNftPU

    Narrated by Val Cole

    POEM: I am an immigrant, nomadic desperate for home,
    to hammer myself into existence
    out of pain in depths of yearning—
    for what it’s too immense to bookend in language,
    perhaps only indicted by silence inserting itself
    into the form,
    the only s...

  • Poetry Reading: The Complete History of Our First Kiss, by Gary Beaumier

    Narrated by Val Cole

    POEM:

    The old trees bend protectively around us
    as we rest on the park bench in our winter wear
    your faltering mind following the course of the river that is close and sure and deep

    even now I can still find your younger face and remember the pillowy softness
    of your lips...

  • Poetry Reading: THE BLACK SHUTTLE IS PASSING OVERHEAD, by Lawrence Bridges

    Narrated by Val Cole

    POEM:

    i. THE BLACK SHUTTLE IS PASSING OVERHEAD

    ii. The Chumash (California) referred to meteors as Alakiwohoch,
    which simply meant “shooting star.” They believed a meteor was a
    person’s soul on its way to the afterlife.

    iii. The black shuttle is passing overhead, sent ea...

  • Poetry Reading: THE ALTITUDE OF PEARS, by Lawrence Bridges

    Narrated by Val Cole

    POEM:

    Today is a day both rare and familiar. Tragic months before
    another comes around. This will be the past that makes the
    future proceed. Only what of the lack of true possession?
    What of the decline spotted once again in our ascent, that
    we heard in what was said in tir...

  • Poetry Reading: THE AHA Moment, by Margie B. Klein (interview)

    Narrated by Val Cole

    POEM:

    Beauty is what we’re here for.
    To utilize our sense of wonder
    To create a path of wonder for others.
    Be awake in the now and
    Find that connection to the universe
    To dig deep and discover what is in us
    That is moved by the aesthetically pleasing.
    Why is that which we ...

  • Poetry Reading: NO MOW MAY, by Jonathan Memmert

    Narrated by Val Cole

    POEM:

    Grass grown tall green slicks drizzle wet,
    new planted seedlings shakily take hold,
    crumpled mulch retains soil covered mold,

    run tongued dogs
    checked for ticks
    lap water bowls.

    And I am left with trowel and rake
    to gather weeds in sunlit rain still cold.

    How easi...

  • Poetry Reading: Night to Ourselves, by John Wojtowicz

    https://youtu.be/CNbkjDqe6TM

    Narrated by Val Cole

    POEM:

    After checking each other
    for spit-up stains, we head to an Italian place,
    glasses of red wine, gnocchi,
    in a booth by the window.

    There’s a flurry or two, Christmas
    lights strung across Main.
    The marquee on a local theater
    seduces: Ult...

  • Poetry Reading: MISSING YOU, by Rita McDermott

    Narrated by Val Cole

    POEM:

    I miss you…
    phoning
    just to say hello.
    I miss you…
    calling
    to hear about your day.
    I miss you…
    coming here to stay
    giving me
    your precious time.
    I miss…
    our travels together
    taking in the sights
    like kids set free
    on a playground
    finding pleasure
    in exploring new thi...

  • Poetry Reading: RELATIVITY [FLYING BEYOND UNDERSTANDING] REWOUND, by David James

    Narrated by Val Cole

    POEM:

    Sometimes I’m stunned by how time

    moves through a life
    so easily
    and quietly
    so that one spring day,
    you’re ten, running to a neighbor’s to climb
    his apple tree;
    the next week,
    you’re buying your first house in Adrian,
    wife pregnant with a third child;
    two weeks lat...

  • Poetry Reading: TO GAIN & TO LOSE, by Brady Spicer

    Narrated by Val Cole

    POEM:

    I hate that I am gaining so much weight,
    It’s feeling like I’m losing my grip on fate,
    As here and there, I await and debate,
    How to turn back learned time.
    I need to not burn my rhymes,
    Except in my readers minds.
    I feel blind and signed,
    My fine health away,
    Today a...

  • Poetry Reading: THE MIRROR, by Maurice Dean Wint

    Narrated by Val Cole

    READ POEM:

    Cold unconscious metal
    Reflective concentration
    Carefully cloned contortions
    Cast in curves of concave
    Full length spying steelfaces
    Hung in private parlours
    Viewing fornication
    Convex copulation
    Such vivid observation
    For one so unalive.

  • Poetry Reading: NIGHT FOREST, by Gary Beaumier

    Narrated by Val Cole

    POEM:

    Once there was a woman in the night forest
    who could hear above the register of most.
    She would listen to mice sing in chorus
    or coyotes comfort their young
    over the flash and rumble of coming weather.

    There was the night when I stayed in the garden
    late into the ho...

  • Poetry Reading: Dreaming in Crystals, by Calvin Shaw (interview)

    Narrated by Val Cole

    POEM:

    Silk tangerine sheets dance melodically
    as reflections of the sultry moon, gleams
    through the lofts balcony, under-shadowed
    by the soft lip presses of two sexually stressed humans
    pressed against their saturated melaninated skin
    pressing old buttons during the practi...

  • Poetry Reading: DEVOTED (DEVOURED), by Eli Fultz

    Narrated by Val Cole

    POEM:

    I hate when cannibalism is used as a metaphor for love.
    I think love is a form of devotion which does not include devouring. Maybe
    hunger and
    sometimes bruises or
    sunburns
    but never devouring.

    I wrote in a poem once that I am a liar at the best of times.

    I hate when...

  • Poetry Reading: A SNOWY DAY IN CENTRAL PARK, by Hector Quinones

    Narrated by Val Cole

    POEM:

    My love, I was just praying when the Holy Spirit put you in my mind; did I ever tell you that you are stupid fine!?

    I was envisioning us playing in the snow, please my love; don’t forget to bring that special glow!

    We would now have snowball fights, but I promise no...

  • Poetry Reading: STILETTO STEEL, by Ardalan Pourvali

    performed by Val Cole