Dr. Liz Burke-Cravens reads selections from Tony Hoagland's book, Sweet Ruin.

Dr. Liz Burke-Cravens reads her poem "WATCHING DR. CHRISTINE BLASEY FORD TESTIFY TO THE SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE WHILE WAITING FOR MY STUN GUN TO ARRIVE VIA UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE" WATCHING DR. CHRISTINE BLASEY FORD TESTIFY TO THE SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE WHILE WAITING FOR MY STUN GUN TO ARRIVE VIA UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE In a room full of wealthy men bent on destroying her, completely oblivious to the fact that has already happened at least once during the summer of 1982 and then again in her memory countless times, their laughter living in her hippocampus, shacked up there, like a guest in her house who just won’t leave, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testifies to them and the world on the other side of the cameras, including me, sitting heart-hurt and shucked raw as an oyster on my couch in the California quiet of this dark fall morning knowing I am her and she is me our stories so similar I actually wonder if The Room Upstairs Across the Hall from the Bathroom is a tactic young men are taught. Is there some unit in their abstinence-only sex ed class titled, How to Get Her on the Way to the Bathroom? Or The Benefits of a Narrow Stairwell? Is it more direct than that? I don’t really know, but Christine, I hear their laughter, every 98 seconds another woman hears them too, and so does every woman in this infuriated army I sense assembling around me while he cries and yells and protests. He should be afraid because as I sit here in the comfort of my home on my nice couch with my cute dogs and a warm cup of coffee the laughter, the locked door, the hand stopping a crying mouth live inside me too and still I persist. I am far from destroyed rebuilt on the will and strength of all the women before me, and today my stun gun will arrive in the mail, of all fortuitous days, and I will not be afraid to use it and I am not the only one.

Dr. Liz Burke-Cravens reads "The Secret" written by Denise Levertov. The Secret BY DENISE LEVERTOV Two girls discover the secret of life in a sudden line of poetry. I who don’t know the secret wrote the line. They told me (through a third person) they had found it but not what it was not even what line it was. No doubt by now, more than a week later, they have forgotten the secret, the line, the name of the poem. I love them for finding what I can’t find, and for loving me for the line I wrote, and for forgetting it so that a thousand times, till death finds them, they may discover it again, in other lines in other happenings. And for wanting to know it, for assuming there is such a secret, yes, for that most of all. Denise Levertov, “The Secret” from O Taste and See: New Poems. Copyright © 1964 by Denise Levertov. Used by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.

"Object Permanence" by Nicole Sealey, read by Dr. Liz Burke-Cravens OBJECT PERMANENCE (for John) We wake as if surprised the other is still there, each petting the sheet to be sure. How have we managed our way to this bed—beholden to heat like dawn indebted to light. Though we’re not so self- important as to think everything has led to this, everything has led to this. There’s a name for the animal love makes of us—named, I think, like rain, for the sound it makes. You are the animal after whom other animals are named. Until there’s none left to laugh, days will start with the same startle and end with caterpillars gorged on milkweed. O, how we entertain the angels with our brief animation. O, how I’ll miss you when we’re dead.

Dr. Liz Burke-Cravens reads "Death Poem" by Kim Addonizio

Dr. Liz Burke-Cravens reads Eavan Boland's poem, "The the Science of Cartography is Limited."

Dr. Liz Burke-Cravens reads Margaret Atwood's poem, "Torture."

David Whyte's poem "Sweet Darkness" read by Dr. Liz Burke-Cravens

"Threshold" by Ocean Vuong read by Dr. Liz Burke-Cravens

Dr. Liz Burke-Cravens reads the poem "Brown Circle" by Louise Glück.