John Green Reads Poetry

So many poems to listen to!

Hey, there’s a missing poem!

Hi! This website is an ongoing labor of love inspired by John’s self-proclaimed love of poetry ¹ and the mission of Ours Poetica.²

We’re working very hard combing through the vast amounts of online content John and Hank have created ³ — and continue to create! — to find every instance of John reading poetry.⁴ Most of these were short poems that used to appear as an opening segment in the Dear Hank & John pod.⁵

Check out our growing list of missing or lost poetry-related John Green media:

Lost Media (help us out)!

We have a long way to go, and are using the posts’ dates as a way to organize everything chronologically with relevant tags to make everything extra useable!

So if you have a suggestion of something we missed or would like to share a piece of poetry-related media you’ve found…

Let us know!

—

This is also a recurring riff in many of the opening segments of Dear Hank & John
A lovely play on the Latin phrase Ars Poetica (“The Art of Poetry”)
Examples: 1 | 2
And, occasionally, someone else, such as his wife, his brother, or a poem inspired by one of Hank’s rants. Admittedly, some things are qualified as ‘poems’ rather loosely — John has read lyrics, and other nontraditional items as poetry, and that’s a wonderful thing!
Because poetry is, always, what we make it.
And are still missed by Nerdfighters everywhere!

ALL POEMS

Related Resources

Dear Hank & John

Or as he likes to call it: “Dear John & Hank”

Transcripts*
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“Howl” (excerpt) by Allen Ginsberg

September 14, 2007

John’s related banter…

Reading from chapter 2 of his book, Paper Towns:

I took an elective in poetry my sophomore year because I heard that Margo was taking it. By then we weren’t friends really, because she was already the high priestess of Winterpark High School. She was friendly to me, but I never really had anything to say to her really, except occasionally during classes. The great surprise of that class was that I actually like poetry. At least some of it. There’s this one poem we read called “Howl”, and it starts out: [reads opening line]

I’ve never seen Margo starving, or hysterical, and God knows I’ve never seen her naked. But somehow — and this is why I like poetry — those words still describe her as she stood outside my window. Her blinkless blue eyes, starving, and hysterical, and naked, staring back at me. I think she was still trying to piece it together – how the strings break, I mean – as she stared at me. Margo always loved mysteries, and in everything that came afterward, I could never stop thinking that maybe she loved mysteries so much that she became one.

vlogbrothers | September 14th: Paper Towns, Part 2