In Poetry Is Not a Luxury we use the best contemporary poets to explore the most urgent social issues. Each month we focus on a different book and discuss poetry as poets do. We read our favorite poems out loud, listen for sound and rhythm, consider how the poet plays with language, and consider the joys and sorrows in the poems.

Our 2017-2018 season focuses on Voices of the Silenced/Voices of the Resistance.

The June selection for Poetry Is Not a Luxury is Ocean Vuong's "Night Sky with Exit Wounds" - a haunting and fearless debut, which walks a tightrope of historic and personal violences, creating an interrogation of the American body as a borderless space of both failure and triumph.

July 25 - Janine Joseph, "Driving Without a License"