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*
Patreon | X | Email
Listen for free:

Other Resources

Tags & Categories

Big Bang poem by Elle Cordova

A.k.a. “There was no up, there was no down, there was no side to side”

Sources

Original: YouTube
Hank’s Original Short
Reddit: Transcript

One year later:
• Instagram
• TikTok
• Facebook

Her TED Talk: Poetry and music that reaches across the digital void

Click to read poem

Before the Big Bang
there was no up
there was no down
there was no side to side
there was no light
there was no dark
nor shape of any kind
there were no stars or planet Mars
or protons to collide
there was no up
there was no down
there was no side to side
and furthermore to underscore this total lacking state
there was no here
there was no there
because there was no space
and in this endless void which can’t be thought of as a place
there was no time
and so no passing minutes, hours, days
of all the paradoxes
that belabour common sense
I think this one’s the greatest
this time before events
because how did we go from nothing
to infinitely dense?
from immeasurably small
to inconceivably immense?
but before we get unmoored from the question at the start
let’s take a breath and marvel
at when math becomes an art
because we don’t have to understand it
to know there was a time
when there was no up
there was no down
there was no side to side

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