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

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Dear Hank & John

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

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“The Last Will and Testament of John Keats” by John Keats

March 26, 2014

John’s related banter…

Speaking of uh beauty being truth and truth beauty uh being all you know and all you need to know. I also like John Keats a lot. Um and then um anytime I talk about John Keats, I got to talk about uh the poem that Salinger uh attributed to uh one of the glasses. Um I think in Seymour introduction uh John Keats. John Keats put your coat on. Um John Keats’s last will and testament one perfect line of amic pentameter. My chest of books divide among my friends.
For those of you who don’t know what iambic pentameter is, by the way, I can teach you really quickly. So then you will have actually learned something from the wimblelywamblies.

…Um I’m talking about some of my favorite poets. Do you have any of my f Who do you think are my favorite poets?
I I was just talking about Keats as it happens. I’m also a big Walt Whitman fan. He’s Keats died when he was 27. Oh, do do you want me to tell that story?
Yeah. So, um my the first one of the very first times I I met Sarah or you know in our adulthood, we went to high school together. We didn’t know each other in high school. One of the very first times that we met, um, she came to my apartment for my birthday party. It was my 27th birthday party and it was, uh, it had a Keats theme because of course Keats, what the f Oh, now I’m angry. Keats died when he was uh, what’s the point? It was the I’d lived a year long. I’d lived longer than Keats and I still hadn’t accomplished anything in my life. My first book wasn’t out yet and it was a party about how, you know, look at what Keat’s accomplished in his life and I’ve done nothing.
Sorry. It wasn’t that dark in real life, but now I’m in a dark, dark place because we’re down 2-1 despite being, it must be said, the far better side. It’s no justice in football, ladies and gentlemen.
…
Um, I love I love Walt Whitman’s uh Leaves of Grass. Um, I love Shakespeare, of course. Um, although I make fun of him a lot in the fault in our stars. Um, I love uh I love I love the sonnetss.
Uh, I love his I I mean, I love I love the iambic pentameter in his plays. Oh, right. I was going to teach you what iambic pentameter is really quickly in case you don’t know. It’s um it’s got it’s 10 syllables, one line, 10 syllables. Da d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d that’s how it sounds you can if you can say it du dut dut dut du it’s pentameter um so you emphasize the second syllable of each uh what’s called foot each leg two
…
Um yeah, so my chest of books divide among my friends. Um for some reason I can’t think of a single other line of pentameter in the in the whole of the literature. But anyway, most most well lots of English poetry is a pentameter because it sounds so good.

hankgames | Poetry: AFC Wimbly Womblys #56