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This recording is presented by Princeton Public Library. Poets featured in the book appear in person and virtually to present readings of their work, offering a groundbreaking and vital perspective on war’s destruction of the natural world.

About "Convergence: Poetry on Environmental Impacts of War"
Edited by Anne Coray, J.C. Todd, and Teresa Mei Chuc
Forewords by Scott McVay and Rick Steiner

"Convergence: Poetry on Environmental Impacts of War" offers a groundbreaking and vital perspective on war’s destruction of the natural world—the creatures, plants, soil, water, and atmosphere of Earth. In poems and contextual comments, 61 contemporary poets focus on military damages to the ecosystems on six continents and the moon. Framed by a cogent introduction and a pair of forewords, one on the poetry and the other on global consequences, the poems are accompanied by a tally of ecological costs and a set of thought-provoking discussion and writing prompts for teens and adults. This compelling anthology alerts readers to environmental degradation of our planet while affirming nature’s resilience and regeneration.

Contributors: Ninety poems, each paired with an Author’s Note, by U.S. and international poets, including John Balaban, Gillian Clarke, Camille T. Dungy, Ferida Duraković, W.D. Ehrhart, William Heyen, Cynthia Hogue, Denise Low, Craig Santos Perez, Vivian Faith Prescott, Eric Paul Shaffer, Jillian Sullivan, Brian Turner, Pamela Uschuk, and Mai Der Vang.

Featured readers:
J. C. Todd, co-editor of "Convergence: Poetry on Environmental Impacts of War." Her most recent books are "Beyond Repair" (Able Muse Press, 2021) and the bilingual English–Lithuanian "What Kept Me Awake? / Kas neleido užmigti?" (PDR, 2024). A former Fellow of the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, she has poems in American Poetry Review, The Paris Review, Pedestal, Prairie Schooner.

Richard Levine is the author of "Taming the Hours: An Almanac with Marginalia" (forthcoming), "Now in Contest, Selected Poems," "Contiguous States," and five chapbooks. A Vietnam veteran, he co-edited “Invasion of Ukraine 2022: Poems,” is Associate Editor of BigCityLit.com, and the recipient of the 2021 Connecticut Poetry Society Award.

MaryAnn L. Miller is a poet, printmaker, and book artist, she has four published collections of poetry. Miller has been thrice nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her work has appeared in the anthologies "Illness as a Form of Existence," "Welcome to the Resistance," and "Stained." Her poem "Petrarch’s Map" is part of a collaboration with Steamroller Printers.

Alexander Essien Timothy is a professor of Language Arts Education at the University of Calabar, Nigeria. His research interest is in innovative strategies for teaching English and Literature-in-English. He loves storytelling, especially with Tortoise as main character. He writes poems, and short stories as a hobby.

Jaylan Salah is an Egyptian poet, translator, destination manager at Trip500, and film critic for Geek Vibes Nation and InSession Film. She has published two poetry collections, translated eleven books into Arabic, and her poem “You Can’t Dress Me Up, Auntie A” inspired the short film "The Bride."

Lavinia Kumar’s latest prose book is "Spirited American Women: Early Writers, Artists, & Activists." She’s published three poetry books and four chapbooks. Her poems and flash fiction are in a variety of poetry journals & three anthologies. She’s received four Pushcart and one Best of Net nominations. Her website: laviniakumar.net

Sean Mclain Brown is a combat disabled Marine Corps veteran. His writing is heavily influenced by his experience in combat and living with consequences of war. His writing has appeared in more than 50 journals and is featured in "An Introduction to the Prose Poem" and "Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace."

For more poetry programming, see the digital brochure for "Verse and Voice: A Festival of Poetry" taking place April 18 to May 4 at the library.

Public Humanities programs are presented with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this programming do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

This event was recorded on May 04, 2026.

This recording is presented by Princeton Public Library. Writer and art historian Patricia Albers discusses her book "Everything is Photograph: A Life of André Kertész," the first full biography of the innovative “father of modern photography.”

About the Book (from the publisher):
Born in Budapest in 1894, André Kertész soared to star status in Jazz Age Paris, tumbled into poverty and obscurity in wartime New York, slogged through 15 years shooting for House & Garden, then improbably reemerged into the spotlight with a 1964 retrospective at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. By the time of his death in 1985, he had exhibited around the world, taken more than 100,000 images, and steered the medium in new and vital directions: He was the first major photographer to embrace the Leica, the camera now mythically linked to street photography, and he pioneered subjective photojournalism, publishing what is arguably the world’s first great photo essay.

Drawing on dozens of interviews, previous scholarship, and deep archival research, and interrogating the images themselves, Patricia Albers retrieves aspects of Kertész’s life that he and his pictures gloss over, among them the ordeals of trench warfare, the impact of the Holocaust, and the tale of his tangled romances. She takes Kertész from the Eastern front in World War I to the Paris of Piet Mondrian, Colette, Alexander Calder, and a lively central European diaspora. From Condé Nast’s postwar media empire to the “photo boom” of the 1970s. She revisits Kertész’s relationships with other photographers, among them his “frenemy” Brassaï and protégé Robert Capa. She breathes life into a gentle, generous, and unassuming man endowed with Old-World charm but also sputtering with grievance and rage and inclined to indulge in deception.

"Everything Is Photograph" immerses readers in the heyday of a now lost version of photography. Formally vigorous, emotionally rich, and aesthetically charged, Kertész’s images speak of the medium as a tool for human connection, self-narration, self-invention, and inquiry about the world, even as they project its mysteries.

About the Author:
Patricia Albers is a California-based writer, editor, and art historian. She is the author of "Joan Mitchell, Lady Painter: A Life," the acclaimed first biography of the abstract painter. Her previous books include "Shadows, Fire, Snow: The Life of Tina Modotti" and "Tina Modotti and the Mexican Renaissance." Albers’s essays, art reviews, and features have appeared in numerous museum catalogs and publications, including SquareCylinder, San Francisco Magazine, the San Jose Mercury News, and the New York Times. She has served as a panelist for the National Endowment for the Humanities and a juror for the Biographers International Plutarch Award.

This event was recorded on May 06, 2026.

Library staff members read a poem every day during April to mark National Poetry Month.

Martha shares "Sky--" and "Dear Bubble-That-Was" from the book Dear Acorn (Love, Oak) by Joyce Sidman and illustrated by Melissa Sweet.

Library staff members read a poem every day during April to mark National Poetry Month.

Yun-Yi shares "Patchwork Pigeons" from the book Outside Your Window by Nicola Davies and illustrated by Mark Hearld.

Library staff members read a poem every day during April to mark National Poetry Month.

Marissa shares "The Mutt" from the book Best in Show by David Elliott and various illustrators.

This recording is presented by Princeton Public Library. Former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky presents and discusses "Robert Pinsky: The First Two Books of Poems" and "On Poetry, Democracy, and Culture" with Eliza Griswold.

Eric Crahan at Princeton University Press, Editor in Chief for Humanities and Social Sciences, introduced Robert Pinsky and Eliza Griswold.

About "Robert Pinsky: The First Two Books of Poems:"
Award-winning poet Robert Pinsky’s first two collections—"Sadness And Happiness" and "An Explanation of America"—announced the arrival of a major new voice in American poetry. Now, these acclaimed books are presented together in a single volume featuring a new preface by the author, introducing a new generation of readers to the groundbreaking early work of a beloved poet. "Sadness And Happiness" explores everyday subjects such as the streets and oceanfront of Pinsky’s hometown of Long Branch, New Jersey, while the long title poem of "An Explanation of America" examines personal and national myths as it transports readers across the country.

About "On Poetry, Democracy, and Culture:"
For Robert Pinsky, poetry’s individual, human scale as a fundamentally vocal medium—with poems brought to life by one person at a time—gives poetry a unique importance in American and democratic culture and society. This book brings together two compelling works of criticism by the former poet laureate—"The Situation of Poetry" and "Democracy, Culture and the Voice of Poetry," in which he makes a passionate and eloquent case for the vital role of poetry in a democracy.

About the Author:
Robert Pinsky is an award-winning American poet, essayist, and translator. He has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for poetry and the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism. He served for three terms as the U.S. Poet Laureate, during which time he founded the Favorite Poem Project. His many books include "On Poetry, Culture, and Democracy" (Princeton), the memoir "Jersey Breaks: Becoming an American Poet," and the poetry collections "Proverbs of Limbo, At the Foundling Hospital, and Selected Poems." His bestselling translation of Dante’s "Inferno" won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Among his other awards and honors are the William Carlos Williams Award, the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, the PEN/Voelcker Award, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the PEN American Center. He is distinguished professor emeritus of English and creative writing at Boston University.

In Conversation:
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, translator, and poet Eliza Griswold, director of the Princeton University Humanities Council’s Program in Journalism, has been a contributing writer for The New Yorker for more than two decades, where she has extensively covered religion, politics, and the environment. Since 2016, she has served as a distinguished writer in residence at New York University. Griswold has written and translated several books of nonfiction and poetry, including "Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America," which won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction in 2019; "I Am the Beggar of the World: Landays from Contemporary Afghanistan," which she translated to English from Pashto; and a recent book of poems, "If Men, Then." Her most recent book, "Circle of Hope: A Reckoning with Love, Power, and Justice in an American Church," builds on years of Griswold’s immersive reporting to tell the story of a Philadelphia church and a community in crisis. (Photo: Tori Repp/Fotobuddy)

For more poetry programming, see the digital brochure for "Verse and Voice: A Festival of Poetry" taking place from April 18-May 4 at the library.

Public Humanities programs are presented with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this programming do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

This event was recorded on April 23, 2026