Event Genre: Poetry

Jazzed and Poetic

Music and language are a match for the ages. Begin the morning with jazz and poetry with poets Jay Deshpande and Jason Koo (More Than Mere Light), together with Kim Clarke and Friend. 

Virtual Poetry Reading

Poets Kaveh Akbar (Pilgrim Bell), Victoria Chang (The Trees Witness Everything), and Warsan Shire (Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head) read from their new volumes of poetry. Introduced by the co-chair of the Brooklyn Book Festival’s Poetry Committee, Hafizah Augustus Geter (The Black Period: On Personhood, Race, and Origin).

NBF Presents: An Afternoon with the National Book Awards

National Book Award–honored authors Martín Espada (Floaters, 2021 Poetry Winner), Katie Kitamura (Intimacies, 2021 Fiction Longlist), and Natasha Wimmer (Space Invaders, 2021 Translated Literature Finalist) gather for a cross-genre conversation about the borders of time, place, and language. Moderated by Ruth Dickey, Executive Director of the National Book Foundation.

New Works: A Poetry Reading

Poets Omotara James (Song of My Softening), Solmaz Sharif (Customs), Ryann Stevenson (Human Resources), and Jeffrey Yang (Line and Light) read from their new volumes of poetry. Introduced by Michelle Campagna, Academy of American Poets

What Language Can Do

Poets Wo Chan (Togetherness), John Keene (Punks: New & Selected Poetry), Yesenia Montilla (Muse Found in a Colonized Body), and Claire Schwartz (Civil Service) discuss how language serves as a tool for discovering one’s place in the world, while also investigating loss, grief and the possibilities of desire and joy. Moderated by Tina Chang (Hybrida).

Poetry and Play

Poets Chen Chen (Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency), Darrel Alejandro Holnes (Stepmotherland), Rachel Mannheimer (Earth Room), and Bianca Stone (What Is Otherwise Infinite) discuss how poems use humor, pop culture, and political histories as artistic strategy. Moderated by Gala Mukomolova (Without Protection).

Hanging Loose Press: Kill Genre (In-Person)

This panel features Hanging Loose Press poets who work in other genres/formats—and often blend genres to write in modes that are difficult to categorize in compelling ways. This panel will look at what it means to switch or blend genres/formats as an author. It will also explore the field of hybrid writing and examine its […]

Alice Austen House Staten Island Poetry Reading (Virtual)

The Alice Austen House is a historic house and museum presenting the life and work of Victorian, lesbian photographer Alice Austen. The museum provides a platform for multidisciplinary arts programs and has become a home for Staten Island poetry readings, celebrating new voices and raising up the work of long-time Staten Island resident Audre Lorde. […]

Writing and Reproductive Freedom (Virtual)

Join The Resort writing community in a discussion with Onnesha Roychoudhuri, Kim Gek Lin Short, and Erin Williams, about what happens when contemporary literature reflects our current reality in ways that illuminate and expand urgent conversations. Roychoudhuri, Short, and Williams are contributors to the multi-genre collection I Know What’s Best for You: Stories on Reproductive […]

#YeahYouWrite (In-Person)

The #YeahYouWrite Reading Series features #LiteraryCocktails, delicious food, brilliant authors, and an open mic in the dreamy Ostrich room at M. Wells, LIC. The atmosphere is relaxed, but the energy is high. September’s event features DISQUIET International Literary faculty Katherine Vaz, Terri Witek, and Cyriaco Lopes and alum Vanessa Chan. Vaz and Chan will read […]

Covid and the Creative Process (Virtual)

BLR editors Danielle Ofri and Doris W. Cheng are joined in conversation by poet Phillip B. Williams and novelist Weike Wang. With special guests: playwright Sarah Ruhl and scientist/writer Joseph Osmundson. Covid has generated unusual creative pressures: Must writers write about the pandemic? Does bearing witness to inequities impact creative output? How do we make […]

IN CONVERSATION: George Abraham, Cynthia Dewi Oka, Natalie Wee, and Jenny Xie (In-Person)

A roundtable talk between Jenny Xie, Natalie Wee, Cynthia Dewi Oka, and George Abraham on their new collections, the possibilities and limitations of language work, and rest and fatigue from the margins; this talk will be moderated by Asian American Writers’ Workshop editor Yi Wei. Copies of Jenny Xie’s The Rupture Tense, Cynthia Dewi Oka’s […]

Truth & Beauty: A Night of Readings, Music, Art, & Mingling (In-Person)

Join H.I.P. Lit, Bach & Bacchanalia, and The Coffee House for “Truth & Beauty” at Salmagundi, a social club founded by artists in 1871. Readings from author and philosopher Skye Cleary (How to Be Authentic: Simone de Beauvoir and the Quest for Fulfillment), debut novelist John Manuel Arias (Where There Was Fire), and poet Nancy […]

An Evening with TriQuarterly (Virtual)

Join Northwestern University Press and TriQuarterly Magazine for an evening of poetry! With performances from Mary Jo Bang, C. Russell Price, Brionne Janae, Megan Fernandes, Hannah Bonner, and Nadalyn Gwendolyn Ismatu Bangura. https://nupress.northwestern.edu/

Crown Heights Literary Celebration (In-Person)

Come celebrate the thriving Crown Heights literary scene with a reading and mingle hosted by four of the neighborhood’s most exciting arts organizations: The Franklin Park and Big Words, Etc. reading series. World Trans Forum Open Mic, and book-centered garden salon Hypothetical Books. Hear poetry and prose from local authors Simeon Marsalis, Sarah Madges, Cat […]

WoW! Whitman on Walls! (In-Person)

Whitman on Walls! takes Walt Whitman’s radical vision and shapes it into a cri de coeur for justice in the world’s community. Using Whitman’s own artistic inspiration from opera, musicals, plays and journalism, WoW! is a hybrid event intermingling over 50 performers and 7 short films with local living poets to accept Whitman’s invitation to […]

Walt Whitman Initiative Tane Poetry Library: Grand Opening Celebration! (In-Person)

The Walt Whitman Initiative is thrilled to welcome you to the opening of our free, open-access Tane Poetry Library! Come peruse our 600-plus-volume-and-growing-collection, built entirely from donations from our generous supporters. Stay to enjoy performances by Tim Cusack (“I Ping the Body Electric”) and Compagnia de’ Colombari in and around our historic reading space, and […]

Narratives On Gray Magic: A Suite On Age & Aging (Virtual)

Narratives bring together poets, spoken word artists, musicians and a song stylist. Multi-generational voices united in purpose. Dismantling imposed ageist stereotypes. Telling our stories, how we live and experience our lives and bodies. Creating new paradigms for living, aging and navigating our lives and spaces. Our ensemble of artists and truth tellers are powerful and […]

Brooklyn Poets Reading Series (In-Person & Virtual)

Named one of the best reading series in NYC by Time Out New York, the Brooklyn Poets Reading Series takes place six times a year and is free and open to the public. Each reading features three poets, with at least one from Brooklyn and one from outside the borough, pairing emerging with more established […]

Stories from Brooklyn (In-Person)

A multidisciplinary gathering of authors explores what it means to live, write, and be in community with other writers in Brooklyn. “Stories from Brooklyn” brings together graphic novelists, poets, fiction writers, and essayists to discuss how the borough of Brooklyn inspires writing practice, encourages original literary work, supports writers and independent publishing, but can also […]

Who’s Afraid of Childhood? (In-Person)

Book bans are on the rise. Last year, the American Library Association tracked 729 attempts to remove library, school, and university materials, involving 1,597 titles—double the number in 2019. Shedding light on the most recent spate of censorship, “Who’s Afraid of Childhood?” explores books set in childhood to highlight denial and resistance to depicting its […]

Poets Punching Out Prose / Our Gooey Coddle (In-Person)

Join us for an eclectic evening of Scottish nonfiction and poetry, led by Michael Pedersen (Boy Friends; Oyster) with Glasgow/Cambridge-based poet and author Hollie McNish (Slug: and other things I’ve been told to hate) and New Zealand-based author, playwright and poet Dominic Hoey (Poor People with Money). Location: The Hunterian, 413 E 70th St, New […]

St. Francis College Unbound (In-Person)

In the spirit of the St. Francis College MFA Program’s literary journal Unbound Brooklyn, professors from the St. Francis MFA program will read from work on the theme of that which is unbound: the limitless, the unfettered, the free. This reading will feature work that centers rebellion, rule breaking, taking creative risks, and producing radical […]

Exquisite Corpse Queens Edition (Virtual)

Ten Queens poets will come together to create and perform an Exquisite Corpse poem on the theme of recollection, as well as to discuss our experiences of Queens lit and community. Hosted in partnership with the Lewis Latimer House Museum in Flushing. Poets: Nadia Q. Ahmad, Moncho Alvarado, Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond, Sherese Francis, Abeer Y. […]

Dual Perspectives (Virtual)

A Public Space invites aspiring writers and editors to a conversation about the art of the editorial dialogue. Bring your questions and join APS managing editor Megan Cummins and Writing and Editorial Fellows Vivian Hu, Crawford Hunt, Taylor Michael, and Ruby Wang as they discuss their early experiences of working with either an editor or […]