Welcome to The Poetry Center

Historic video recordings (with downloadable audio) plus a few audio-original recordings, documenting the Poetry Center Reading Series. We'll post rare video from the 1970s and 1980s, thanks to digital transfers by BAVC, the Bay Area Video Coalition, and its Preservation Access Program. Newly-posted audio includes a rediscovered 1954 lecture by W. H. Auden and a repaired 1959 reading by Allen Ginsberg of his "Kaddish" and other poems — one of our most popular recordings. Check out the video highlight clips here!

Watch the video of the Poetry Center's memorial tribute to our beloved friend and teacher, Etel Adnan. Participants include Zaina Alsous, David Buuck, Naz Cuguoğlu, Fady Joudah, Stefania Pandolfo, and Camille Roy. (Included in the program, thanks to Simone Fattal, is a long excerpt from Adnan's film "Motion.") Presented in conjunction with the Tripwire Cross-Cultural Poetics Series. Photo by Geordie Martinez, 2008.

We are honored and delighted to be presenting renowned indigenous poet Simon J. Ortiz, on a return visit to The Poetry Center (having first read his work here way back in 1975). Poet, fiction writer, essayist, and storyteller Simon Ortiz is a native of Acoma Pueblo and is the author of many books. He'll present a solo reading and talk with his audience, Thursday SEPT 15 at The Poetry Center, then be joined by Jennifer Elise Foerster that Saturday SEPT 17 at Medicine for Nightmares in San Francisco's Mission District.