connection

Mark Doty reads mostly new, uncollected poems that revolve around his observations and experiences living in New York City, with a focus on his co-op apartment building. He opens the evening with a memory of the mentorship he received as a high-schooler from Richard Shelton, who had recently passed at the time of this reading. This reading was given as part of the Tom Sanders Memorial Reading Series. 

Tracy K. Smith reads from her essay collection Fear Less: Poetry in Perilous Times (2025), alternating between the book's prose and recent poems. These recent poems come from Such Color: New and Selected Poems (2021) and from an unpublished manuscript titled The Forest. Smith describes poetry as an intervention amidst the rise of de-humanizing values and as a response that invites us to recognize the humanity in one another.

Vievee Francis reads from The Shared World (2023) and Forest Primeval (2016), along with one uncollected poem. The poems she reads consider the griefs and joys of close relationships amidst the strains of our present world. This reading was originally given alongside Matthew Olzmann.