The 14th Annual New York City Poetry Festival
July 12 + 13, 2025
Nolan Park, Governors Island
11:00 AM - 6:00 PM
Poster Designed by Chloe Rodriguez
Ready for one of the most unique experiences you’ll have this summer in New York City?
What can attendees expect at Poetopia?
As Poetopia suggests—everything your little poetry heart can dream of, and more!
The festival remains 100% free to attend—beyond the $2.75 ferry fare, there are no barriers to entry or to performance.
More than 100 collectives and literary organizations will bring their voices to five outdoor stages The Brinkley, The Blackbird, The White Horse, The Beckett, and The Algonquin!
With no in-house poetry style, expect everything from Nuyorican Poets Cafe’s snaps-worthy spoken word to interdisciplinary performances from Poets House’s literary powerhouses.
Enjoy food and drinks from a delicious range of NYC food trucks and vendors
Explore local art, bookmakers, music, theater, and the weird and natural wonders of the island
Performing
on the
Main Stage of
Poetopia 2025
Naomi Shihab Nye
Naomi Shihab Nye describes herself as a “wandering poet.” She has spent more than 40 years traveling the country and the world to lead writing workshops and inspiring students of all ages. Nye was born to a Palestinian father and an American mother and grew up in St. Louis, Jerusalem, and San Antonio. Drawing on her Palestinian-American heritage, the cultural diversity of her home in Texas, and her experiences traveling in Asia, Europe, Canada, Mexico, and the Middle East, Nye uses her writing to attest to our shared humanity. Find more information at
Naomi Shihab Nye
July 13th at 3:30 pm
Eileen Myles
Widely renowned, poet, novelist, performer, and art journalist, Eileen Myles is a trailblazer whose decades of literary and artistic work, in the words of the New York Review of Books, “set a bar for openness, frankness, and variability few lives could ever match.” Myles is the author of more than twenty books including a “Working Life” (Grove, 2023), I Must Be Living Twice: New & Selected Poems, and a re-issue of Chelsea Girls. Poems written by—and a character based on—Myles appeared in seasons 2 and 3 of the Emmy-winning Amazon show Transparent. Their memoir, Afterglow (a dog memoir),(Grove, 2017) paints a kaleidoscopic portrait of a beloved
confidant: the pit bull called Rosie. Find more information at https://www.eileenmyles.com/
Anne Waldman
Anne Waldman is a living legend. Poet, performer, professor, editor, cultural activist, grandmother, and co-founder with Allen Ginsberg of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. Former director of the Poetry Project. Tireless author of over 40 books, her trademark energy coils ever outward, always seeking to reveal the four-fold vision that we have largely lost. Find more information at https://www.annewaldman.org/
Eileen Myles
July 12th at 3:30 pm
Anne Waldman
July 13th at 3:00 pm
Sam Sax
Sam Sax is a queer, Jewish writer and educator. Their most recent book is the debut novel, Yr Dead (McSweeney’s, 2024), longlisted for a National Book Award in Fiction, and called “profoundly original” by Kirkus Review in a starred review. Their most recent book of poems is Pig (Simon & Schuster, 2023), which was shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ+ Poetry. They’re the author of Madness, winner of the National Poetry Series, and Bury It, winner of the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets. Find more information at https://www.samsax.com/
Andrew Whiteman
Andrew Whiteman is a musician and mythopoetics scholar from Montreal, Canada. He writes and performs in Broken Social Scene, Apostle of Hustle, AroarA, and Poets’ Workout Sound System. He is a co-founder of Siren Recordings. Find more information about Siren Recordings at https://sirenrecordings.com/
Andrew Whiteman
July 13th at 3:00 pm
Sam Sax
July 12th at 3:00 pm
“Set up along Colonels’ Row, a lush avenue of former officers’ houses in the historic section of the island, the festival reflects the mission of the Poetry Society: to bring together the divergent strands of the city’s poetry scene under a single banner, at least for one weekend. Accordingly, it will feature poets comfortable on the page and on the stage, in the academy and on the street corner.”
What is Poetopia: Reimagining Poetic Futures?
Every July, The Poetry Society of New York (PSNY) transforms Governors Island into a sprawling, sun-drenched poetry wonderland known as The New York City Poetry Festival (NYC PoFest). For fourteen years, poets, poetry lovers, and poets-to-be have flocked from far and wide to frolic on the island’s lush green lawns and shout poetry to the skyline; to snack on Smorgasburg-worthy treats with new and old poetry besties; to scribble odes to Victorian mansions beneath a canopy of century-old trees.
But NYC PoFest is more than a celebration—it’s a site of transformation, a verdant sanctuary of creative expression in a chaotic world. At a time of political unrest and rampant divisive rhetoric, PSNY believes poetry is a blueprint for possibility, a practice of reimagining a more inclusive, equitable world. Foraging for wildflowers amidst proverbial sidewalk cracks, NYC PoFest 2025—July 12th and 13th from 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM on Nolan Park, Governors Island—introduces Poetopia: Reimagining Poetic Futures. This year’s festival poses a timely question to its audience of approximately 15,000+ arts enthusiasts:
What’s your Poetopia? What magic can participants and attendees alike co-create when hierarchy dissolves, language is free, and art is a communal resource?
Join us and get to know The Poetry Society of New York!
The Poetry Society of New York has a simple mission: to redefine poetry’s place in our culture through a growing portfolio of innovative experiments and experiences.