The Poetry Society of New York

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The Poetry Society of New York

The Poetry Society of New York (PSNY) is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit arts organization

The Poetry Society of New York is an artist-led nonprofit that creates fun, innovative poetry experiences. Our mission is to bring the transformative impact of poetry to those seeking a more creative life. We envision a world where poetry is not just celebrated, but vital and accessible to all: breaking down barriers, inspiring joy, and uplifting diverse voices.

10/16/2026

A little art, a little poetry, a little something for your inbox🥛✨

Introducing The Milk Letter, our monthly newsletter pairing a piece of visual art with a poem from the pages of Milk, our literary publication.

This month’s pairing features artwork by Untitled Queen (Untitled Queen) alongside “Lullaby in Rivering Tongue” by Miriam Saperstein.

Want more poetry and art in your life? Sign up for our newsletter at our link in bio to receive The Milk Letter every month 💌

10/15/2026

A reminder that poetry matters, even when it feels like no one is listening 🤍

Poem: “To a Young Poet” by Zaina Alsous in Poetry Foundation

10/14/2026

A little music, a little inspiration, and a whole lot of poetry ✨

This month, renowned poet Major Jackson is setting the mood with a mixtape featuring Eddie Kendricks, Minnie Riperton, Willie Bobo, and more. Consider this your soundtrack to getting creative 🎶

Want the full playlist AND an exclusive writing prompt from Major Jackson? For just $5/month, become a PSNY member and get monthly playlists and writing prompts from some of today’s most celebrated poets delivered straight to your inbox.

Become a PSNY member at our link in bio!

10/13/2026

In “Ekphrasis and the Other,” WJT Mitchell asserts that “words can ‘cite’, but never ‘sight’ their objects.”

Building from this provocation, next Tuesday on 10/20, our Free Verse for Immigrant Writers workshop with Christine Imperial (Christine) surveys the possibilities and complexities of ekphrastic poetry.

We ask, what possibilities emerge when we push ekphrasis to its limits? Rather than simply framing ekphrasis as writing about art, we explore and practice ekphrasis as a mode of irreverent and intertextual translation wherein the failure of fidelity— the fissures between visual and verbal— becomes the potent site for possibility and creation.

Irreverence is a key theme in our workshop that speaks to the ways poets, especially those from marginalized backgrounds, have used ekphrasis as a space to subvert and critique various forms of representational violence.

About the Instructor:

CHRISTINE IMPERIAL (Christine) is a Cultural Studies PhD candidate at UC Davis. Their first book Mistaken for an Empire was published in 2023 with Mad Creek Books as a Gournay Prize Winner. Their writing has been published or is forthcoming in Fence, The Kenyon Review, Meniscus, TLDTD, Poetry, among others. They hold an MFA in Creative Writing from CalArts.

10/12/2026

How can we move on from what we cannot name?

We hold funerals for the dead, but where are the flowers, casseroles, and condolences when you lose your cat in the breakup? Loss is not limited to death: friendships end, divorces proceed, therapists ghost, dreams disappear — the list goes on.

Everyone you know is grieving something, but most won’t mention it. How can we move on from what we cannot name?

In this week’s workshop on Thursday 10/15 with Madeline Adelle Phillips, we’ll generate writing as a mourning ritual. We’ll learn new names for loss, and invent ones of our own. Poems by Elizabeth Bishop, Lisa Olstein, Nikki Giovanni, and Heather Christle will inspire us to create space to grieve what we didn’t know we could.

About the Instructor:

MADELINE PHILLIPS (Madeline Adelle Phillips - she/her) is an NYC-based poet and performer who overdresses for every occasion. She is currently working on two manuscripts: a collection of postcard poems and a crown of q***r sonnets.

Her work has been published in Battery Journal, the Marymount Review, Poetry Nook, and Bowery Gothic. Madeline is also active in the NYC zine community, with work featured in Poetry is a Team Sport, Dead End Zine, Bad Words Press, and Poetry is Gay.

You can read more of her work, as well as an interview with Brooklyn Poets, where she was a two-time Yawp Poem of the Month winner and runner-up for Yawp Poem of the Year, at https://linktr.ee/reign_of_madeline. If you’re a poet who likes karaoke, come to her open mic, Sing2Me Read2Me Baby, and introduce your poem with a song!

10/08/2026

Who says poetry has to be readable?

Poetry doesn’t always play by the rules. Sometimes it twists language, disrupts expectations, and challenges everything we think a poem should be.

Take Douglas Kearney’s CAMH (On Sight), a striking example of how poetry can push beyond the boundaries of the written word.

This fall, we’re embracing the beautifully strange world of experimental poetry in our six-week virtual intensive, Unreadable Poetry, led by Gabriel Ojeda-Sagué.

Through visual poetry, collage, sound poetry, nonsense poetry, and more, we’ll explore how unreadability can become a powerful tool for creative expression, formal innovation, and political resistance.

Join us Wednesdays October 28th – December 2nd on Zoom!

Open to poets ready to experiment, disrupt, and rethink the possibilities of language. Register at our link in bio!

10/06/2026

What happens when we treat writing like a game of spirit, intuition, and possibility? ✨

Join us next Tuesday, October 13th, for our next FREE virtual LGBTQIA+ Free Verse workshop on The Spirit Game with Bimbi (Bimbi)

The Spirit Game is a generative exercise of group divination. Participants will learn different divination skills and explore how to apply them to the poetic process. As a group, we will ask questions anonymously—to each other, to ourselves, to an omniscient being—and channel this omniscience to summon answers, solutions, and...poetry!
About the instructor: Bimbi, aka Angel Hubris, is an artist, writer, and performer living in Brooklyn, NY. They work with sound, video, sculpture, performance, and text, exploring belonging/displacement, identity, violence, gender/sexuality, the body politic, mysticism/occultism, dis/ability, and disobedience. They recently published a short story and reflection on violence called A Bird’s Neck For Lunch, an adaptation of their sonic work DOG/GOD, which was broadcast via Montez Press Radio in 2023. Their poems and essays have been published in Petit Mort, Currant Jam Magazine, S***A, Layout Magazine, and No, Dear. They have performed at Performance Space New York, Pioneer Works, Recess Art, Text2Speech, and were a part of Performa 2025 for Pakui Hardware’s Spores.

10/05/2026

This week’s Thursday night virtual workshop with Moriana Delgado (𝓂𝑜𝓇𝒾𝒶𝓃𝒶) explores the poem as a built space — an architecture of feeling, structure, and intention.

We will consider how poets use shape to construct meaning, much like architects design burial pyramids, palace complexes, or house stairs. By examining how a poem creates movement and verticality, participants will develop a deeper understanding of form as both material and metaphor.

Participants will also be provided prompts that invite them to design and “confect” their own poems—stanzas like rooms, arranging lines like beams, and experimenting with scaffolds of mood and syntax.

About the Instructor:

Moriana Delgado (𝓂𝑜𝓇𝒾𝒶𝓃𝒶) is a writer from Mexico City. She is the author of the poetry collection Peces de pelea (Libros UNAM, 2022) and the chapbook all blue awnings (If a Leaf Falls Press, 2024). A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Illinois Chicago. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Foundation, The Poetry Review, Nightboat, and elsewhere.

10/03/2026

“Burn in the daylong light; and praise…” 🔥🍇

The Masquerade is TONIGHT! 🎭

Join us for Bacchanalia, our 4th Annual Masquerade Ball — an evening of poetry, performance, masks, revelry, and a little Dionysian excess.

Our Masquerade Ball is a fundraiser supporting and helping us continue to offer free and accessible poetry programming throughout the year.
Come celebrate with us and help keep poetry accessible in NYC🍷✨

This is your last chance to get tickets! Secure your spot in the decadence at our link in bio 💫

Address

New York, NY

Website

http://www.poetrysocietyny.org/

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