Celebrating National Poetry Month 2026
In celebration of NATIONAL POETRY MONTH, 2026, we have curated a group of video conversations from the ArtSpeak archives with impactful poets.
Beginning March, 2020, some of the videos below were recorded via Zoom. Click on any video link (below the images). You must be connected to the Internet to view the videos.
Poet Major Jackson
MAJOR JACKSON is the author of six books of poetry, including “Razzle Dazzle: New & Selected Poems” (2023), “The Absurd Man” (2020), “Roll Deep” (2015), “Holding Company” (2010), “Hoops” (2006) and “Leaving Saturn” (2002), which won the Cave Canem Poetry Prize for a first book of poems. He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and serves as the Poetry Editor of The Harvard Review.
3X U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky’s Autobiography: “Jersey Breaks”
ROBERT PINSKY is a poet, essayist, translator, teacher, and speaker. His first two terms as United States Poet Laureate were marked by such visible dynamism—and such national enthusiasm in response—that the Library of Congress appointed him to an unprecedented third term. Throughout his career, Pinsky has been dedicated to identifying and invigorating poetry’s place in the world.
Poet Elizabeth Jacobson
ELIZABETH JACOBSON was the fifth Poet Laureate of Santa Fe, New Mexico and an Academy of American Poets 2020 Laureate Fellow. Her third collection of poems, “There are as Many Songs in the World as Branches of Coral,” will be published in 2025 by Free Verse Editions/Parlor Press.
Video Chat: Richard Blanco – Poet, Author, Civil Engineer
Selected by President Barack Obama as the fifth inaugural poet in U.S. history, RICHARD BLANO joined the ranks of such luminary poets as Robert Frost and Maya Angelou. The youngest, first Latino, immigrant, and gay person to serve in such a role, he read his inaugural poem, One Today, at the official ceremony.
Denise Duhamel: Poet, Educator
Poet DENISE DUHAMEL earned her MFA at Sarah Lawrence College. Her most recent books of poetry are Second Story; Scald; and Blowout, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her other titles include Ka-Ching!; Two and Two; Queen for a Day: Selected and New Poems; The Star-Spangled Banner; and Kinky. She and Maureen Seaton have co-authored four poetry collections, the most recent of which is CAPRICE (Collaborations: Collected, Uncollected, and New). She is a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.
A Video Conversation with Poet Campbell McGrath
CAMPBELL MCGRATH grew up in Washington, D.C. where he attended Sidwell Friends School. He received his B.A. from the University of Chicago in 1984 and his MFA from Columbia University’s creative writing program in 1988. He currently lives in Miami Beach, Florida, and teaches creative writing at Florida International University.
McGrath has been recognized by some of the most prestigious American poetry awards, including the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award (for “Spring Comes to Chicago”, his third book of poems), a Pushcart Prize, the Academy of American Poets Prize, a Ploughshares Cohen Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Witter Bynner Fellowship from the Library of Congress, and a MacArthur Foundation “Genius Award.” In 2011 he was named a Fellow of United States Artists. In 2017 McGrath was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.
