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!

—

  1. This is also a recurring riff in many of the opening segments of Dear Hank & John
  2. A lovely play on the Latin phrase Ars Poetica (“The Art of Poetry”)
  3. Examples: 1 | 2
  4. 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.
  5. And are still missed by Nerdfighters everywhere!
ALL POEMS

Related Resources

Dear Hank & John

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

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“Dream Boogie” by Langston Hughes

The opening piece in his extended work Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)

John’s related banter…

Today I’m going to talk about poets and poetry. Some of my favorite poets, some of my favorite uh lines from poetry. I guess I don’t I’m not a great uh memorizer of poems. Although I love I love reading poetry aloud. … that’s what poetry is.
You want to know what poetry is? Um, one of my favorite poets is uh Langston Hughes. I probably should have just dribbled there. Um, I also when I quote poetry, I often get it wrong, so just as a heads up. Um, I I love I love um I love Langston Hughes. I love his like I love his really really short um poems like uh uh dying is hard and birthing is mean. So get yourself some loving in between. Um but I also love like the big epics like uh a dream deferred. I love that that line um from montage of a dream deferred. Good morning daddy ain’t your heard the boogie woogie rumble of a dream deferred. So good man. That’s so good. Get a tiny tiny little golden boy.

… Um, also like uh um also of course love the poetry of Emily Dickinson, as anyone who’s read any of my books would know. … That is that’s poetry in motion right there.

hankgames | Poetry: AFC Wimbly Womblys #56

Good morning, daddy!
Ain’t you heard
The boogie-woogie rumble
Of a dream deferred?

(Unquoted remainder)

Listen closely:
You’ll hear their feet
Beating out and beating out a –
You think
It’s a happy beat?
Listen to it closely:
Ain’t you heard
something underneath
like a –
What did I say?
Sure,
I’m happy!
Take it away!
Hey, pop!
Re-bop!
Mop!
Y-e-a-h!

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