RECEPTION: 6:00 – 7:00PM
READING: 7:00 – 8:00PM

Glimpse the freshest crop of new poetry. After browsing the exhibition, listen to poets read from books included in the Showcase.

Support our 30th Anniversary year by attending one our most beloved programs: our annual poetic pilgrimage across the Brooklyn Bridge. Pulitzer Prize-winner Tyehimba Jess and other distinguished poets read poems about the city by Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes and other New York-centric writers along the way, followed by a celebratory dinner with guest Bill Murray and more poetry. Proceeds make Poets House programs and services possible, including over 100 free programs for children and teens each year.

Travel to the future of poetry: 2018 Emerging Poets Fellows read new work crafted during mentorship by their workshop leader, poet Aracelis Girmay. The Emerging Poets Fellowship, now in its seventh year, assists poets by providing writing instruction, mentorship, funding, and access to Poets House’s world-class poetry resources.

Presented with support from the Jerome Foundation

Friends and fellow poets gather to honor National Book Award-nominee Naomi Replansky, who has been praised by Philip Levine as a “warrior for social justice” and B.H. Fairchild as “the master of a Blakean music radically unfashionable in its devotion to songlike meters and the reality and politics of working-class experience.”

Exhibition Opening: 6PM
Talk with exhibition curator Sophie Seita: 7PM

MacArthur Award-winning poet and critic Edward Hirsch considers how five 19th- and 20-century poets treat luminous moments and visionary experiences. It is “Within a Moment: a Pulsation of the Artery,” William Blake writes, “when the Poets Work is Done.” Such unexpected breakthroughs—sudden and revelatory—arise out of commonplace experiences. How do different poets dramatize epiphanies that rupture time? And how do they integrate them into consciousness?

Lullabies and Laments is an experiment in translation, informed by Indic reading, interpretive and performative practices. Moving between Tamil and English, this performance with Grammy Award-nominee Sikkil C. Gurucharan and scholar and translator Archana Venkatesan explores laments and lullabies and the role of gender in expressing love, longing, desire and devotion.

Sonnets have been written in English for about 500 years, and though their popularity has risen and fallen during that time, almost from the beginning poets have utilized sonnets for everything from grand statements to private messages. Shane McCrae explores the history of the sonnet and considers its use by today’s poets.

Presented as part of the Emerging Poets Fellowship public lecture series, with support from the Jerome Foundation.

National Book Award-winning poet Shane McCrae reads from his work.

Presented as part of the Emerging Poets Fellowship public lecture series, with support from the Jerome Foundation

L.A. Times Book Award-winner Carl Phillips discusses how pattern makes for meaning and muscularity in five poems. Author of over a dozen poetry books and two books of criticism, Phillips’s newest
poetry collection is Wild is the Wind.

30 Poems: Close Readings
This spring, Poets House continues with a year-long exploration of 30 poems that have left an indelible mark on the history of poetry: six poets provide close readings of five enduring poems (6 x 5 = 30).