“The Universe in Verse” Live-Streamed

Streamed live at 4 p.m Pacific time, Monday, April 24

— from Brain Pickings by Maria Popova–

This “labor-of-love [is a] celebration of science and protest against the defunding of the arts. (Original announcement below.)

“When power corrupts, poetry cleanses,” John F. Kennedy famously wrote. Half a century later, with art, science, and the humanities under assault from the government, this intersection of science and poetry, truth and beauty, is an uncommon kind of protest and a singularly fertile frontier of resistance.

I’ve joined forces with the Academy of American Poets and astrophysicist Janna Levin to host “The Universe in Verse” on April 24 at Brooklyn’s Pioneer Works — an evening of poetry celebrating great scientists and scientific discoveries, with all proceeds benefitting the Academy of American Poets and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Readings by: Amanda Palmer, Rosanne Cash, Janna Levin, Elizabeth Alexander, Diane Ackerman, Tavi Gevinson, Sarah Jones, Tracy K. Smith, Jad Abumrad of Radiolab, Sam Beam of Iron and Wine, Brandon Stanton of Humans of New York, and a very special surprise appearance.

Poems about: Marie Curie, Isaac Newton, Caroline Herschel, Charles Darwin, Pythagoras, black holes, the Solar System, the number pi, and more.

Poems by: Adrienne Rich, Wisława Szymborska, John Updike, Charles Simic, Howard Nemerov, Elizabeth Alexander, Diane Ackerman, and more.

Doors at 6:30pm, show 7–8:30pm. Eastern time

LIVESTREAM at https://live.brainpickings.org/brainpicker/live/the-universe-in-verse

Thanks to Joellen Moldoff