City Lore, Bowery Poetry and Poets House have joined together to present the 2026 People’s Poetry Gathering, in multiple locations downtown, with a large array of poets and poetry events, beginning on Sunday, October 18th and running through November 1st.
The lineup features performances and workshops by a variety of artists, including Indigenous, folk, youth, and literary poets and musicians, as well as collaborations with iconic venues like The Nuyorican, The Clemente, Howl Gallery, St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery, Poet’s House, the Great Hall at Cooper Union, and more — not to mention free workshops and poetry slams everywhere you look.
The celebratory program promises to transform Lower Manhattan into an impressive “Poetry Village,” in conjunction with “Of the People: The Smithsonian Festival of Festivals,” which celebrates the 250th anniversary of the United States. It will include over 50 different events during the two-week period.
I spoke with CityLore’s curators for the event: Bob Holman, Steve Zeitlin and Sahar Muradi — about the impetus for bringing the event back downtown (it’s been 20 years since the last gathering) and the many happenings that will be springing up around the neighborhood.
Zeitlin, who is the director of CityLore, used to work with the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and told me the idea came from wanting people to be able to find poems anywhere they went, within walking distance. The original People’s Poetry Gathering was founded as a biennial event in 1999, but ended in 2006, so this is a triumphant return after two decades.
Holman is the founder of the Bowery Poetry Club. He pointed out that this is definitely the largest poetry festival in the country. “The most exciting thing is that people will get to see poetry in all of its guises. Poetry from the streets and poetry from the the ivory towers. And poetry from the landscape of the US, both geographically and aesthetically — and culturally,” he said. “Certainly, our opening event with Sonia Sanchez is going to be a highlight.”
Holman explained, “Sonia is the Mama of our country’s poetry. And we are all her children. To be able to have her so vitally (still) with us is a blessing and an honor…And the poets who are going to be here, Tracy K. Smith, Danez Smith, Jessica Care Moore (poet laureate of Detroit), a great musical poet, Ursula Rucker, from Philadelphia and Yolanda Wisher, as well as our special musical guest, Sweet Honey in the Rock, which is an internationally known group that often does pieces by Sonya Sanchez.”
Sahar Muradi, a poet and the Director of Education Programs at CityLore, proudly claimed Sweet Honey in the Rock, the headliner for the tribute day honoring Sonia Sanchez, as one of her curating contributions. The legendary a capella group blends gospel, blues, jazz, and folk to address civil rights, human rights, and environmental issues.
Muradi also emphasized that this is not meant to be a festival just for poets. “We’re calling it a ‘Big Tent’ festival,” she said, “it’s inclusive and welcoming and I can guarantee there is something for everyone on this calendar.”
She is particularly excited about the “pairing” of her friend Haleh Liza Gafori – a poet, performer and translator who translates the Sufi mystic poet Rumi – along with Naomi Shihab Nye, a Palestinean poet performing with musical accompaniment, for an evening of “Poetry & Song” at the Sheen Center on October 29th.
Zeitlin added, “Yeah, we’re trying to also, you know, cover things that you might not think of — we have cowboy and rancher poets coming for one evening. We have a session on memorizing poetry. There’s a Japanese tradition of death poems, which is little known, but an unbelievable tradition, where Buddhist monks and samurai warriors would write a haiku to recite just before they died… And Patty Smith is the (culminating) event. It’s a reading with Patty Smith and her poetry pals at St. Mark’s Church on All Saints’ Day, and Patty’s calling it ‘Saints and Scoundrels’.”
There will be poetry projected on al kinds of surfaces, in multiple locations, in all different languages, and translated live by software created by the team.
I asked what they hope people come away with after coming to participate, in one way or another?
“Everybody writes their own poem,” Holman said.
Muradi said, “For me, it would be that maybe you discover something about your own relationshop to poetry or about a poet that you didn’t know before…and many of us feel like it’s been a challenging and difficult few years, so if you hear even a line you can carry with you, or a turn of phrase that allows you to see something in a different [positive] way, that would be powerful.”
“We’ve conceived this in different ways to to be forward looking,” Zeitlin said. “One of the things we’re doing at the gathering is a session on poetry in AI. And my sense is that, poetry is increasingly important for people, as a way of expressing their individuality, when there’s so much challenging that, by things that can be generated with AI. People’s ability to write something that is personal, by only them, is gonna become all the more important.”
Check out the full schedule for the Gathering here. Additional highlights are listed below:
10/18 – “Alabanza: A Tribute to the Nuyorican Poets Cafe,” live bomba and plena performance and more @ La Tea Theater, Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center, 107 Suffolk St.
10/22 – “Masquerade of Metaphors: Embody Your Favorite Poem– A Poetry Costume Party” hosted by Wo Chan, “Illustrious Pearl” @ Howl Gallery, 6 East 1st St.
10/23 – “Praise Day for Sonia Sanchez,” with Sweet Honey & the Rock, Tracy K. Smith, Danez Smith, Yolanda Wisher and More @ Great Hall, Cooper Union, 7 East 7th St.
10/25 – “Poetry and Song” Joy Harjo and Band and Cornelius Eady Band @ St. Marks Church in the Bowery, 131 East 10th St.
10/27 – “Zingeray: a Yiddish Folksong Gathering” organized by Peter Rushefsky @ City Lore, 56 East 1st St.
10/31- “Edgar Allen Poe Reading on Halloween in the Historic 2nd Avenue New York Marble Cemetery” with Bob Holman, Toni Blackman, Denize Lauture and more, 41 ½ 2nd Ave.
10/30 – “Poet as Witness: Poetry of Conscience” with Heid E. Erdrich, Kwame Dawes, Jimin Seo, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, and Camonghne Felix @ Poets House, 10 River Terrace
*The Lo-Down is a media sponsor of The 2026 People’s Poetry Gathering.
