The Poets House Poetry Path in New York’s Battery Park City, an installation of lines of poetry embedded into the urban landscape—on paving stones, railings, flags, and benches—is officially…
A Message to Our Community
Poets House joins with all people of conscience to express outrage and pain as crisis grips our nation.
Police brutality continues unabated: Jacob Blake, shot seven times in the back. Rayshard Brooks, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and Ahmaud Arbery—just a few of the countless victims of systematic racism in our nation. At the same time the death toll from Covid-19 surpasses 180,000, inordinately impacting communities of color.
Over and over again racism expresses itself in lethal violence—and systemic racism expresses itself in ruined lives and death. Now is the time for all voices to be raised to demand our justice system be remade and inequity throughout our culture be redressed.
What can poetry do in the face of these calamities—calamities not equally shared among us? Poets House acts on the belief that poetry bears witness, incites a language of mutuality and care, and by so doing insists on individual and collective action to bring about change. Poetry helps us find ways to stand in solidarity against brutality.
As the great Caribbean poet Édouard Glissant wrote, We cry our cry of poetry. Our boats are open and we sail them for everyone.
With love and solidarity,
Nicholas Potter, President
Linda Earle, Vice President
Lee Briccetti, Executive Director
The library is closed but we have many digital initiatives for our community.
Upcoming Events
Poets House Presents: francine j. harris
Oct 23, 2020 | 12:00 pm - 12:20 pmAward winning poet francine j. harris reads from “Here is the Sweet Hand” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2020), from quarantine in Houston, TX.
Poets House Presents: Yona Harvey
Oct 30, 2020 | 12:00 pm - 12:20 pmPoet and writer Yona Harvey reads from “You Don’t Have To Go To Mars for Love” (Four Way Books, 2020), from Pittsburgh, PA.
Nov6
Joshua Whitehead (photo by Sweetmoon Photography)
Poets House Presents: Joshua Whitehead
Nov 6, 2020 | 12:00 pm - 12:20 pmPoet Joshua Whitehead reads from “full-metal indigiqueer” (Talonbooks, 2017), from Calgary, AB, Canada (Moh’kinsstis, Blackfoot Confederacy).
From the Blog
Our Fall 2020 Series of Ten-Minute Readings
Ali, Armantrout, Daye, Erdrich, Escobar, harris, Harvey, King, Machado, Taulapapa McMullin, Murillo, Robertson, Sáma, Wah, Whitehead, Wong, Yamanaka!
Poets House Fall 2020 Workshops: Weekend Master Classes and Six-Week Courses
Video conference workshops with Kazim Ali, Rae Armantrout, Rick Barot, Joanna Fuhrman, Cyree Jarelle Johnson, Patricia Spears Jones & Xandria Phillips!
The Path is Made by Walking
The Poets House Poetry Path in New York’s Battery Park City, an installation of lines of poetry embedded into the urban landscape—on paving stones, railings, flags, and benches—is officially…
Our Fall 2020 Series of Ten-Minute Readings
Ali, Armantrout, Daye, Erdrich, Escobar, harris, Harvey, King, Machado, Taulapapa McMullin, Murillo, Robertson, Sáma, Wah, Whitehead, Wong, Yamanaka!
Poets House Fall 2020 Workshops: Weekend Master Classes and Six-Week Courses
Video conference workshops with Kazim Ali, Rae Armantrout, Rick Barot, Joanna Fuhrman, Cyree Jarelle Johnson, Patricia Spears Jones & Xandria Phillips!