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Award-winning poet is the featured poet at the 53rd annual City College Poetry Festival on May 2 in CCNY’s Marian Anderson Theater, in Aaron Davis Hall. Dubbed “the Woodstock of the Spoken Word,” the festival has become New York’s longest-running poetry celebration. 

"The City College Poetry Festival is the democratic voice of poetry in New York City public schools,” says Pamela Laskin, retired lecturer in CCNY’s English department and former director of the CCNY Poetry Outreach Center, which produces the festival. “Its assumption is that there are many poets, and they all have terrific stories to tell. This would make Walt Whitman proud." 

Schools from all five boroughs attend, read, and enjoy poetry at the festival. The festival is “something the children always look forward to,” said Deborah Newman, a former teacher at P.S. 368 in Brooklyn, who had been attending the festival for over 13 years. “It’s a blessing, something that is real to them, and it’s an entire year of poetry for the children, leading up to this celebration. The teachers and the administrators love it, too.”

Some of the children who participated in the festival’s early years are now teachers who bring their classes. “In 1975, I introduced a third-grade student to the audience of 400 cheering students, teachers, friends and family; in 1996, this same individual returned to the festival at City and introduced the readers from her fourth-grade class,” recalls Barry Wallenstein, CCNY professor emeritus and former festival founder. “Over the past four decades, this event has become a place of reunion and affirmation for City College alumni, returning teachers, student-poets and friends of the College.”

“It’s quite extraordinary mentoring these young students. They see the world with such different eyes, and then write without censoring themselves, with freedom,” said Alyssa Yankwitt, Senior Poetry Outreach Mentor, CCNY adjunct assistant professor and new co-director. “This is a moment in time when poetry is more important than ever. These students have something to say, and the festival is a place for them to use their voices.”

The event commences with readings by elementary school students, followed by poets from junior high schools. Beginning around noon, the winners of the festival's citywide high school poetry contest will recite their poems, with the top three winners receiving the Poetry Prize, which are cash prizes. 

A reading by Hadara Bar-Nadav, will highlight the day’s festivities.
 
About Hadara Bar-Nadav
Hadara Bar-Nadav is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, the Lucille Medwick Award from the Poetry Society of America, a fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, and other honors. Her books include The Animal Is Chemical (Four Way Books, 2024), awarded the Levis Prize in Poetry, selected by Jericho Brown; The New Nudity (Saturnalia Books, 2017); Lullaby (with Exit Sign) (Saturnalia Books, 2013), awarded the Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize; The Frame Called Ruin (New Issues, 2012), Editor’s Selection/Runner Up for the Green Rose Prize; and A Glass of Milk to Kiss Goodnight (Margie/Intuit House, 2007), awarded the Margie Book Prize. .

Prominent poets to read their work at the festival include: Paul Simon, Allen Ginsberg, Gwendolyn Brooks, Muriel Rukeyser, Adrienne Rich, Philip Levine, Billy Collins, Major Jackson, Kimiko Hahn and Cornelius Eady. Click here for the full list.

The festival presents a special award for the best poem in a language other than English.  Submissions have come from 20 different languages over the festival’s history, reflecting the diversity of both New York City and of CCNY.

The American Academy of Poets continues to be a co-promotional sponsor, along with CCNY’s Division of Humanities and the Arts. Click here for a list of all the sponsors.

For more information about the Poetry Festival, please contact Alyssa Yankwitt or Jennifer Buño at ccnypoetryoutreachcenter@gmail.com or click here to visit the Poetry Outreach Center.