For National Poetry Month, Poetry.LA presents HOW I WRITE A POEM, a documentary short that takes an absorbing look at the creative habits of dozens of prominent and emerging Southern California poets, capturing highlights from the long-running Poetry.LA Interview Series hosted by Mariano Zaro. Some of the interview poets that have been featured in Cultural Weekly.

The 30-minute video includes L.A. poetry personalities like the late Wanda Coleman and Holly Prado; L.A. Poetry Festival founder Suzanne Lummis; former L.A. Poet Laureate Luis J. Rodriguez; nationally noted poets B.H. Fairchild, David St. John, Charles Harper Webb and Sholeh Wolpé; and rising talents like Brendan Constantine, Javon Johnson and Claudia Rodriguez.

Poetry.LA is an online video gallery that puts a face on Southern California’s surging and multifaceted poetry scene.

Since 2007, Poetry.LA’s nonprofit video team has posted many hundreds of poet performances and interviews at its website and YouTube channel, “a quite dazzling eclectic presentation of what’s possible in poetry,” in style, philosophy, and delivery, according to nationally celebrated poet, David St. John, co-editor of American Hybrid: A Norton Anthology of New Poetry and Professor of English in the Univ. of Southern California’s PhD. in Creative Writing & Literature program.

Taking its cameras to locations across the region—from poetry slams to literary venues, from coffeehouse readings to in-studio conversations—Poetry.LA is where many poets and fans go to connect faces and voices to the SoCal poets they’re reading or hearing about.

Enjoy!