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”

Transcripts*
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Other Resources

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“Spring is like a perhaps hand” (excerpt) by EE Cummings

John’s related banter…

And I can always find my 9th grade copy of 100 poems by EE Cummings…
except when it’s March and I want quote that poem about
Spring being like a “perhaps hand which comes carefully out of Nowhere” etc.

This is the 1954 edition of 100 Selected Poems: cummings, e. e.: 9780802130723 (Grove Press: Evergreen / Black Cat)

vlogbrothers | WHERE IS MY NORTON ANTHOLOGY OF POETRY

Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere)

Click to read remainder of poem

arranging
a window,into which people look(while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here)and

changing everything carefully

spring is like a perhaps
Hand in a window
(carefully to
and fro moving New and
Old things,while
people stare carefully
moving a perhaps
fraction of flower here placing
an inch of air there)and

without breaking anything.

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