 Entrance (2011) | |
| Formation | 1985 |
|---|---|
| Type | Poetry library |
| Legal status | Public |
| Location | |
| Website | www |
Poets House is a national literary center and poetry library based in New York City, United States. It contains more than 80,000 volumes of poetry, and is free and open to the public. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, they temporarily suspended operations in November 2020.
Poets House was founded in 1985 by the late Stanley Kunitz, [1] two-time poet laureate of the United States, and arts administrator Elizabeth Kray.[ citation needed ] With holdings of more than 80,000 volumes, [2] Poets House contains virtually all poetry books published in the U.S. since 1990, plus many that are long out of print dating to the early 20th Century.[ citation needed ] It also contains literary journals and chapbooks (small books of poetry), and many audiotapes, videotapes, CDs, and DVDs of poetry readings from the mid-twentieth century through today. Visitors to Poets House can hear the voices of Walt Whitman, E. E. Cummings, William Carlos Williams, Sylvia Plath and hundreds of other poets.[ citation needed ]
In 2005, it was among 406 New York City arts and social service institutions to receive part of a $20 million grant from the Carnegie Corporation, which was made possible through a donation by New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg. [3]
In 1996, the literary newspaper Poetry Flash called Poets House "The House That Holds A Country," a reference to its dedication to being a caretaker of the nation's poetic heritage.[ citation needed ]
In November 2020, Poets House announced it was suspending operations as a result of the economic impact of COVID-19. [4] In 2021, the building was damaged by a flood, although the library was intact. [5] It reopened in January 2024. [6] [2]
In 2009, Poets House moved from its longstanding location in SoHo to an eco-friendly "green" building at Ten River Terrace in Lower Manhattan's Battery Park City. The move was facilitated via long-term lease awarded by the Battery Park City Authority. [1] [7]
The space's interiors were designed by architect Louise Braverman, and is on two floors covering 11,000 square feet (1,000 m2) that opens onto an extension of Teardrop Park. [1]
William Cullen Bryant was an American romantic poet, journalist, and long-time editor of the New York Evening Post. Born in Massachusetts, he started his career as a lawyer but showed an interest in poetry early in his life.
The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation was formed in November 2001, following the September 11 attacks, to plan the reconstruction of Lower Manhattan and distribute nearly $10 billion in federal funds aimed at rebuilding downtown Manhattan. It is a subsidiary of the Empire State Development Corporation, which is a New York state public-benefit corporation.
The Black Mountain poets, sometimes called projectivist poets, were a group of mid-20th-century American avant-garde or postmodern poets centered on Black Mountain College in North Carolina.
William James Collins is an American poet who served as the Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003. He was a Distinguished Professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York, retiring in 2016. Collins was recognized as a Literary Lion of the New York Public Library (1992) and selected as the New York State Poet for 2004 through 2006. In 2016, Collins was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. As of 2020, he is a teacher in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton.
Michael Dana Gioia is an American poet, literary critic, literary translator, and essayist.
A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry, and essays, along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and letters. Literary magazines are often called literary journals, or little magazines, terms intended to contrast them with larger, commercial magazines.
Eileen Myles is an American poet and writer who has produced more than twenty volumes of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, libretti, plays, and performance pieces over the last three decades. Novelist Dennis Cooper has described Myles as "one of the savviest and most restless intellects in contemporary literature." The Boston Globe described them as "that rare creature, a rock star of poetry." They won the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction in 2011 for their Inferno In 2012, Myles received a Guggenheim Fellowship to complete Afterglow, which gives both a real and fantastic account of a dog's life. Myles has been called "a cult figure to a generation of post-punk female writer-performers" and uses they/them pronouns.
Emanuel Xavier, is an American poet, spoken word artist, author, editor, screenwriter, and LGBTQ activist born and raised in the Bushwick area of Brooklyn. Associated with the East Village, Manhattan arts scene in New York City, he emerged from the ball culture scene to become one of the first openly gay poets from the Nuyorican movement as a successful writer and advocate for gay youth programs and Latino gay literature.
Poetry.com is a domain name that has historically been used for poetry-sharing in various forms.
Rigoberto González is an American writer and book critic. He is an editor and author of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and bilingual children's books, and self-identifies in his writing as a gay Chicano. His most recent project is Latino Poetry, a Library of America anthology, which gathers verse that spans from the 17th century to the present day. His memoir What Drowns the Flowers in Your Mouth: A Memoir of Brotherhood was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Autobiography. He is the 2015 recipient of the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Publishing Triangle, the 2020 recipient of the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry, and the 2024 recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Michael W. Horovitz was a German-born British poet, editor, visual artist and translator who was a leading part of the Beat Poetry scene in the UK. In 1959, while still a student, he founded the "trail-blazing" literary periodical New Departures, publishing experimental poetry, including the work of William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and many other American and British beat poets. Horovitz read his own work at the 1965 landmark International Poetry Incarnation, at the Royal Albert Hall in London, deemed to have spawned the British underground scene, when an audience of more than 6,000 came to hear readings by the likes of Ginsberg, Burroughs, Gregory Corso and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
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University of Queensland Press (UQP) is an Australian publishing house based in Brisbane, Queensland. Founded in 1948 as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the University of Queensland and a traditional university press, UQP now publishes books for general readers across fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, and includes works for children and young adults.
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The West Street pedestrian bridges are a series of pedestrian bridges that cross West Street to connect the neighborhoods of Tribeca and the Financial District with Battery Park City in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The bridges were built to provide alternatives to crossing the busy street. Prior to the September 11 attacks, there were three bridges at Chambers Street, Vesey Street and Liberty Street. The Vesey Street and Liberty Street bridges connected the former World Trade Center complex with the World Financial Center.
New York was severely affected by Hurricane Sandy on October 29–30, 2012, particularly New York City, its suburbs, and Long Island. Sandy's impacts included the flooding of the New York City Subway system, of many suburban communities, and of all road tunnels entering Manhattan except the Lincoln Tunnel. The New York Stock Exchange closed for two consecutive days. Numerous homes and businesses were destroyed by fire, including over 100 homes in Breezy Point, Queens. Large parts of the city and surrounding areas lost electricity for several days. Several thousand people in midtown Manhattan were evacuated for six days due to a crane collapse at Extell's One57. Bellevue Hospital Center and a few other large hospitals were closed and evacuated. Flooding at 140 West Street and another exchange disrupted voice and data communication in lower Manhattan.
Elizabeth H. Berger Plaza is a public park in the Financial District of Manhattan, New York City. Formed by the triangular junction of Trinity Place, Greenwich Street, and Edgar Street. It faces the Manhattan exit ramp from the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel. Formerly known as the Edgar Street Greenstreet, this park honors civic advocate Elizabeth H. Berger (1960–2013). In her role as president of the Downtown Alliance, she advocated for the fusion of two traffic triangles at this location into an expanded park. The park is located on the site of a former neighborhood known as Little Syria, a bustling immigrant community displaced by the construction of the tunnel in 1953.
Robert F. Wagner Jr. Park is a green space in the Battery Park City neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. The park is sited on landfill from the World Trade Center site and opened in 1996. It was designed by a partnership of Rodolfo Machado, Jorge Silvetti, Hannah/Olin, and Lynden B. Miller. The park is named after Robert F. Wagner Jr., who helped negotiate the 1979 master plan for Battery Park City before his sudden death in 1991. The park is just north of City Pier A at the southern end of Manhattan.
