You can relax with a wide range of poetry at eighth annual festival on Governors Island (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Colonels Row, Governors Island
Saturday, July 28, 11:00 am – 7:00 pm, and Sunday, July 29, 11:00 am – 5:00 pm, free (donations accepted)
newyorkcitypoetryfestival.com
new york city poetry festival slideshow
In his 1850 essay “The Poetic Principle,” Edgar Allan Poe wrote, “I would define, in brief, the Poetry of words as the Rhythmical Creation of Beauty.” You can engage with the Rhythmical Creation of Beauty this weekend at the eighth annual New York City Poetry Festival, taking place Saturday and Sunday all around Colonels Row on Governors Island. The free fête features three main stages — the White Horse, the Algonquin, and Chumley’s — in addition to numerous pop-up areas and the Ring of Daisy open mic, with presentations by more than six dozen organizations and collectives and hundreds of professional and amateur poets. Saturday’s headliners are Danielle Pafunda and Ladan Osman, while Sunday’s are Nico Tortorella and Terrance Hayes. The celebration of literature is sponsored by the Poetry Society of New York, partnering with Writopia, Visible Poetry Project, and ThinkOlio. Among the many presenters are Red Lips Woman Productions, the Adroit Journal, Argos Books, Brooklyn Poets, Art Kibbutz, Blaqlist Group, NYRB Poets, St. Rocco’s Readings for the Dispossessed, the Poetry Brothel, the Dysfunctional Theater Company, Antrim House Books, Sarah Lawrence College, Jackie Robinson Poetry Day, La Pluma Y La Tinta, Cave Canem, Pen Pal Poets, the NY Browning Society, Pelekinesis, the Italian American Writers Association, Underground Books, Strange Fangs Song Factory, and the Writer’s Studio. Of course, Poe also wrote, in The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, “Words have no power to impress the mind with the exquisite horror of their reality.”