The Poetry Society of New York is an American
nonprofit
A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
organized in the state of
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
in 2015. Stephanie Berger and Nicholas Adamski are founding partners. Its mission is finding new and innovative ways to bring together the poetry community with the general public through a series of events and projects. Events are collaborative, interactive and sometimes held in large-scale public venues in contrast to
traditional poetry reading formats. Based in New York City, its events are held locally, nationally, in South America and in Europe.
The society has published four collections of poetry.
History and funding
The society began under the name The Poetry Brothel in 2008. It was not incorporated until 2010 using instead the name The Poetry Society of New York, LLC. In 2015, The Poetry Society of New York, LLC was dissolved and The Poetry Society of New York, Inc. was incorporated. The Poetry Society of New York was granted 501(c)(3) nonprofit status in 2015 in New York State. The Poetry Brothel is now a program produced by the society.
Fundraising currently includes event ticket sales, memberships and financial sponsorships.
Events
The society has three current and four retired projects and events:
Current projects
The New York City Poetry Festival
The festival was first organized in 2010 and is funded in part by an annual
Kickstarter
Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, ...
campaign as well as sponsors that, in 2016, included the
Brooklyn Brewery,
The New School
The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers. ...
,
New York State Council on the Arts
The New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) is an arts council serving the U.S. state of New York. It was established in 1960 through a bill introduced in the New York State Legislature by New York State Senator MacNeil Mitchell (1905–1996), ...
,
The Poetry Table and the
Vermont College of Fine Arts.
The two-day poetry festival is held annually on
Governors Island and features more than 200 poets. According to
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
, the 2015 event was expected to attract 4,000 attendees. Attendees for the 2016 festival attracted residents of West Virginia, Florida, New Jersey and "a poetry journal staffed by students from around the world." LiteraryManhattan.org stated in 2016 that the festival is "one of the largest poetry festivals in the country" and "features an open mic area, where attendees can explore their poetic voices; a Vendor's Village, where artists, artisans, booksellers and food-makers can sell their products; and poetry-generating, interactive art installations throughout." The winner of the 6th Annual
Clint Eastwood
Clinton Eastwood Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American actor and film director. After achieving success in the Western TV series '' Rawhide'', he rose to international fame with his role as the "Man with No Name" in Sergio Leone's "''Doll ...
Award for American Poetry was announced at the 2016 after-party held at
Fraunces Tavern Restaurant.
The Poetry Brothel
The brothel experience is described in various sources as an interactive descent into a
Victorian
Victorian or Victorians may refer to:
19th century
* Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign
** Victorian architecture
** Victorian house
** Victorian decorative arts
** Victorian fashion
** Victorian literature ...
brothel
A brothel, bordello, ranch, or whorehouse is a place where people engage in sexual activity with prostitutes. However, for legal or cultural reasons, establishments often describe themselves as massage parlors, bars, strip clubs, body rub par ...
or
Prohibition-era
In the United States from 1920 to 1933, a nationwide constitutional law prohibited the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages. The alcohol industry was curtailed by a succession of state legislatures, an ...
Speakeasy populated with
"whores" that are portrayed by male and female actors, artists and poets. Brothel events are a blend of
burlesque
A burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects. ,
Vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...
and poetic performances, the sum of which has been referred to as a "think tank for art." CultureTrip rated the brothel as one of ten suggested "Places To Experience Poetry Readings in NYC."
The Poetry Brothel has been staged in and/or maintains sister organizations in:
Past readers and performers include:
Ariana Reines
Ariana Reines is an American poet, playwright, performance artist, and translator. Her books of poetry include ''The Cow'' (2006), which won the Alberta Prize from Fence Books; ''Coeur de Lion'' (2007); ''Mercury'' (2011); and ''Thursday'' (2012) ...
(2008),
David Lehman
David Lehman (born June 11, 1948[David Lehman]
at poets.org) is an American poet, non-fiction writer, and li ...
(2008),
Dorianne Laux (2009),
Dorothea Lasky
Dorothea Lasky is an American poet.
She has published four full-length collections of poetry through Wave Books and one through Liveright/W.W. Norton, along with releasing chapbooks and appearing in various literary journals.
She is currently ...
(2012),
Karen Abbott
Abbott Kahler, formerly known as Karen Abbott (born January 23, 1973) is an American author of historical nonfiction. Her works include ''Sin in the Second City'', ''American Rose'', ''Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy'' and ''The Ghosts of Eden Park ...
(2015),
Mark Doty
Mark Doty (born August 10, 1953) is an American poet and memoirist best known for his work ''My Alexandria.'' He was the winner of the National Book Award for Poetry in 2008.
Early life
Mark Doty was born in Maryville, Tennessee to Lawrence an ...
(2013),
Matthea Harvey
Matthea Harvey (born September 3, 1973) is a contemporary American poet, writer and professor. She has published four collections of poetry. The most recent of these, ''If the Tabloids Are True What Are You?'', a collection of poetry and images, ...
(2015),
Patricia Smith (2008),
Paul Muldoon (2013),
Robert Pinsky (2016), and
Timothy Donnelly (2013).
The 2011 film "Cabaret Desire" by
Erika Lust
Erika may refer to:
Arts and Entertainment
* Hayasaka Erika (''Megatokyo)''
* Erika (''Friends'')
* Erika (''Pokémon'')
* Erika (''Underworld'')
* Erika Itsumi ''(Girls und Panzer)''
* ''Erika'' (film), a 1971 Italian thriller film
* "E ...
was based on The Poetry Brothel's events.
The Typewriter Project
The Typewriter Project is an interactive installation where a
Smith Corona Sterling typewriter housed in a wooden hut is loaded with a 100-foot roll of paper and a custom
USB
Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad v ...
port that records typed words and provides Internet access to the content. This technology provides further interactive participation with the text online. A
solar generator powers it.
The installation is set up for limited periods in various parks and venues in New York City including
McCarren Park
McCarren Park is a public park in Brooklyn, New York City. It is located on the border of Williamsburg and Greenpoint and is bordered by Nassau Avenue, Bayard Street, Lorimer Street and North 12th Street. The park contains facilities for recrea ...
, Governors Island,
Tompkins Square Park and the Pen & Brush Gallery. Writer-contributors at the interactive typewriter installations include passersby as well as amateur writers and professional poets.
Retired projects
Brothel Books Publications
The society published three books of collected poetry under the imprint "The Poetry Society of New York, LLC & Brothel Books" during its active period between 2010 and 2012. A fourth book was published in handmade form.
The Ear Inn Series
In 2013, the society resurrected
the Ear Inn Series, founded by Ted Greenwald and
Charles Bernstein. The series was dormant after a 20-year run that began in 1978. The series was hosted at the
James Brown House in
TriBeCa, which in turn houses The Ear Inn restaurant and bar. During the society's revival of the series, the tradition of focusing on
language poetry
The Language poets (or ''L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E'' poets, after the magazine of that name) are an avant-garde group or tendency in United States poetry that emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The poets included: Bernadette Mayer, Leslie Scalapi ...
continued. The society's revival of the series was active between 2013 and 2014.
Quartier Rouge Revue
The Quartier Rouge Revue was a quarterly literary video journal started in 2011. It suspended operation in 2012.
The Translation Project
The project began in 2010 and published one book, "The Translation Project: The Poetry Brothel Poets, Spain and The United States, Volume I.” The project’s goal was to translate new poetry into several languages and publish them monthly. It has been on hiatus since 2012.
Controversy
Prior to the society’s first Poetry Brothel event, an organization in Brighton, England held an event by the same name. The controversy is referenced in a reader’s comment posted in an article by
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
dated October 24, 2014 titled "Poetry Brothel puts the bawd in bard" and The Review Review references another rival in Chicago, Illinois, which was started by The Poetry Society of New York but later went independent.
There are no public records indicating legal action between any of the aforementioned entities.
Books
*"Andalucia" by Lisa Marie Basile
*"Inside Me a Whale is Taking Shape" by Nicholas Adamski (limited edition, hand-letter-pressed and hand-bound)
*"My Own Fires" by Lauren Hunter aka Harriett Van Os
*"The Translation Project: The Poetry Brothel Poets, Spain and The United States” edited by Berger, Adamski, Kiely Sweatt and Lisa Marie Basile
References
External links
Poetry Festival’s Official SiteImages of the Typewriter Project on PinterestSister organization and collaborator, Prostibulo PoeticoThe Poetry Society of New York YouTube ChannelNew York City Poetry Festival on Vimeo
{{DEFAULTSORT:Poetry Society of New York
Poetry organizations
2015 establishments in New York City
American writers' organizations
Organizations based in New York City