Alice Oswald never reads.

Despite being one of the great living poets, Oswald refuses to read in public. Rarely leaving her home in Southern England, she objects to flying and, apparently, dislikes well-lit rooms. So – to many – hearing her speak at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles felt impossible.

It was impossible, at least, until Stephen Yenser came along.

Yenser, a distinguished professor emeritus of English, considers Oswald’s reading in 2014 – held in darkness and performed entirely from memory – one of the most special from his nearly 55 years running what is now called the Hammer Museum’s Poetry Series.

“She gave the whole reading without looking at a page. She was there for 45 or 50 minutes. She read the poems flawlessly, as anybody can tell you,” Yenser said. “She knew them all by heart.”

Oswald’s 2014 reading was just one highlight in the long-running series, which boasts United States Poet Laureates and prizewinners among its readers. Originally held in the Sunset Canyon Recreation Center, the series invites poets to read in Westwood for approximately an hour. It has since grown into a community-oriented tradition that makes the greatest poets in the world more accessible to the Westwood community.

The series all started when Doris Curran, the series’ founding curator and a manager at the Sunset Recreation Center, wanted to host more artistic recreational events. When she heard that Yenser – who specialized in contemporary poetry but was forced to teach Shakespeare and Chaucer – joined the university in 1968, she offered him an invitation to contribute to hosting the event.

“Since I was a new appointment in the field, she thought she’d reach out to me and see if I wanted to be involved. And I did,” he said. “Since about 1970, ’71, I’ve been involved in one way or another, in selecting poets and usually introducing them at the readings, contacting them.”

Yenser and Curran decided together that the readings should occur several times per year. Yenser would kick off each event with an introduction about the poet’s place within the wider literary canon, then the poet would read a selection of their work. The duo elected to prioritize famous poets who were not from Los Angeles to give them a new audience, Yenser said. However, as the series has evolved, exceptions have been made to allow UCLA professors to present, such as Harryette Mullen who read at the Hammer Museum in 2022.

Early readers of the series include Poet Laureate Stanley Kunitz, Robert Pinsky – the first U.S. Poet Laureate to serve three terms – and Gwendolyn Brooks – the first Black poet to win a Pulitzer Prize. Yet, Yenser said he selects poets with the goal of variety rather than solely prestige. Jonathan Post, a distinguished research professor of English, said some of the most impressive readings featured more up-and-coming poets.

In its original location, the series had a rustic feel, with participants listening to readings on couches, Post said. Amid the cozy environment, the act of reading aloud brought famous poetry to new life. In particular, Post remembers being struck by the power of Seamus Heaney – who would later win a Nobel Prize – the first time he attended.

“Getting a poem off the page is really important and not easy to do,” Post said. “When you hear someone of his (Heaney’s) gifts, he can bring the poem to you as a reader, and so that itself is a terrific advantage.”

Nestled among bushes and trees alongside the Hill’s tennis courts and swimming pool, the series’ on-campus reading location through the 1970s and 1980s was exposed to outside sounds, occasionally enhancing the reading, Yenser said. 

“W.S. Merwin was giving a reading one evening – and he’s reading a pretty well-known poem of his called ‘Cricket’ – and he was reading along and suddenly a cricket began to chime in,” he said. “William took it completely in stride and just read along. They had a kind of duet and occasionally the cricket would contribute.”

However, when asked what made a strong reading, Post rejected the question. He prefers to focus on what makes a good listener.

“Poets come in different sizes and read in all kinds of different ways,” he said. “Part of what I enjoy doing would be that sheer act of concentration – almost a form of religious meditations – on the way in which someone was speaking.”

During the early years of the series, Curran invited participants to her house in Cheviot Hills for postreading dinners, Yenser said. The dinners are something he has missed since Curran retired, and he hopes the Hammer Museum’s restaurant extends its hours so they can return some day, he said.

“We’d go over to Doris’, and we’d have dinner. She’d cook dinner for everybody. If the poet happened to be a cook, the poet might pitch in too. Louise Glück was a wonderful cook as well as a great poet,” he said.

In the early days of the series, the postreading meetups included countercultural elements, such as jazz musicians, poets smoking marijuana and on one occasion, skinny-dipping in the Sunset Recreation Center’s swimming pool, Yenser said.

“The swimming pool was at times, though rarely, involved after the readings,” he said. “It was not an advertised part of the program.”

The dinners also allowed English professors time to socialize with their colleagues, with many driving through significant traffic to attend, Post said. Robert Watson, a distinguished professor of English, added that the reading’s social aspects remain important today because they unite faculty from different schools of thought.

The dinners also allowed audience members unique opportunities to converse with the poets about their works, Post said. For example, he said he was able to ask Sharon Olds about the impact her autobiographical poetry had on her relationship with her parents.

“It was fun to hear people who were terrific readers of their own verse turn out to be really nice people. Also fun to have dinner with,” Post said.

In the 1990s, the series moved to the Hammer Museum. Claudia Bestor, the Hammer Museum’s director of public programs, said Yenser focuses on selecting readers while the museum organizes the housing, feeding and travel needs of the visiting poets – who receive a modest travel stipend. 

Today, the readings take place on a stage with microphones and under professional lighting in a building that houses paintings by Vincent van Gogh and Claude Monet. Although some of the more homely elements of the original setting remain – guests are offered chocolate chip cookies after readings – the sheer white walls are more intimidating than the couches at the Sunset Recreation Center.

Post said the new location challenged Yenser to dispel the formality of the occasion when introducing the poets by telling little jokes. Watson added that the move also shifted the series’ feel from its “cozy cabin” origins to the “high aesthetic” mood of the modern architecture of the Hammer Museum.

Bestor said a benefit of the move to the Hammer Museum has been the ability to professionally record and archive the poems, which could aid future research and scholarship. 

“T.S. Eliot read his poems one way, and very few people ever heard them. Or W.B. Yeats recorded very few poems. Ezra Pound recorded very few poems in his lifetime. What a shame,” Yenser said. “They were such great poets, and almost nobody has heard their voice and none of those people read in a way you would imagine that they read.”

The series is important for the Hammer Museum because poetry is one of the great art forms and it has the potential to start community conversations, Bestor said. While she did not initially come to events as an avid poetry enjoyer, she said meeting the poets is one of the coolest aspects of her job.

“Every night is different – very different – and every night is a revelation,” Bestor said. 

Despite the series’ historical roots, Bestor also said the events can highlight poetry’s modern relevance. When Keorapetse Kgositsile, an activist who was at the time the South African Poet Laureate, came to read as part of the series, his son – the rapper Earl Sweatshirt – showed up as a surprise to bring attention to the event.The series also recently began allowing attendees to ask questions. Yenser, who was initially opposed to the idea, said he was recently persuaded to moderate a Q&A session to increase audience engagement.

“Originally, I didn’t want Q&As because I had been to too many readings in my life where questions were asked about how early in the day the poet wrote, or did the poet ever write when drinking or high or something like that,” Yenser said. “That seemed to me, really, a waste of time.”

However, at recent readings by Houston lawyer Monica Youn and Boris Dralyuk, the former editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books, audience members have made the most of the Q&As. Audience members have inquired about the use of meter and rhyme or the poet’s literary influences, allowing poets to engage more with their audiences.

The discussion is a popular part of the program, Bestor said.

“Sometimes we’ll have different groups that come for whatever reason for that one poet, and they definitely bring a lot of energy into the room,” she said.

Bestor said the series’ ability to connect people today is particularly important because of how alienated people can feel in LA.

“We always have coffee, tea and cookies for 45 minutes to an hour after the reading. And it’s like visiting with old friends – you get to know the regulars pretty well, and so it’s always nice to have conversations,” she said. “I feel like I’m part of a community, and I hope that they feel they are part of this poetry-loving community.”

Post said the series is also well-attended by academics and teachers, with teaching staff from the Claremont Colleges and the University of Southern California visiting Westwood for the readings.

Watson added that the series ensures students are connected with contemporary poetry, leading him to advertise the series in his classes.

“You don’t have to be a high Elspeth to come in and get something out of it,” he said. “It’s a very welcoming room, and it’s an opportunity to hear what you may not hear very much, which is what the voice of poetry can say.”

When asked about the future, Yenser acknowledged that he would not be around forever to run the series. However, he said he is still thinking with Bestor about ways to make changes, especially since diversification is at the heart of contemporary poetry.

“Poetry has gotten a lot more varied than it used to be. Poets are more diverse,” he said. “Some people think of rap as a poetic genre. I don’t tend to think of it that way and we’ve never been involved with rap at the Hammer, but I don’t count it out. It’s a possibility, I suppose.” 

As the series moved locations and shifted ambiances over the past half-century, the core appeal of the event – intimate readings with the world’s most prestigious wordsmiths – has remained intact. And Yenser, a poet himself, remains at the heart of it. 

“Other things rarely alter

Here on the littoral,

Where we might welcome several

Such visitors each year”