PBS NewsHour Listens in to Michael Broder

On the most recent episode of PBS NewsHour, the program visits Michael Broder, who is publishing a poem a day about his experience living with HIV, for his online collection HIV Here & Now. Corinne Segal writes:

Today is the 258th day that Michael Broder has published a poem on HIV.

The online collection, titled HIV Here & Now, is a yearlong project by Broder to publish one poem a day leading up to June 5, 2016. That day will mark the 35th anniversary of the day the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published its first paper on five cases of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia in young gay men in Los Angeles, marking the beginning of the AIDS epidemic.

Broder said he first thought of the project last April during a conference in Minneapolis, when he attended readings by several other people who, like him, wrote about the experience of living with HIV.

He wanted to continue that conversation with a wider range of voices, including young people, people of color, queer, trans and gender nonconforming people, and people who do not have HIV. “I am starting to challenge people to not look away,” he said.

The project takes submissions online and so far has published work by a number of poets ranging from high school seniors to contemporary poets Marie Howe and Elizabeth Alexander. Poems can be on any topic, and the poet can be of any HIV status. A selection of poems from the project will be published as a print anthology this fall.

Tune in to learn more and to read and hear Broder's poem at NewsHour.