During our 41st season of readings and conversations, Folger Poetry continues to bring poets to the Washington, DC area whose language peels back the layers of everyday to reconnect us to what is essential in our lives.
Among the hundreds of distinguished readers who have shared their work on the Folger stage include: Octavio Paz, Gwendolyn Brooks, Allen Ginsberg, W. S. Merwin, Adrienne Rich, Yusef Komunyakaa, James Merrill, Frank Bidart, Robert Pinsky, Derek Walcott, Hayden Carruth, Rita Dove, Seamus Heaney, Sterling Brown, Denise Levertov, June Jordan, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Sonia Sanchez, and James Dickey .
After each reading a moderated conversation presents an opportunity for poets and poetry-lovers to engage in a deeper discussion about the work.
Each year, we present eight to ten poetry events in the Folger’s Elizabethan Theatre, followed by wine receptions and book signings in the Great Hall. From traditional poetry readings, to multimedia presentations of poetry among the arts, to eclectic combinations of lecture, conversation and performance, Folger Poetry is committed to expanding the contexts in which poetry is experienced.
Annual special events include the O.B. Hardison, Jr. Poetry Prize Reading and The Emily Dickinson Birthday Tribute Reading.
The annual Folger Poetry Board Reading gives distinguished writers an opportunity to share with audiences their favorite poems by other authors as well as their own work. The Folger Poetry Board Reading was inaugurated by Seamus Heaney in 1991. Other readers have included John Updike, Robert Hass, Czeslaw Milosz, Sharon Olds, Octavio Paz, Gwendolyn Brooks, Stanley Kunitz, Alan Shapiro, Sandra Cisneros, Galway Kinnell, W.D. Snodgrass, Pattiann Rogers, Charles Simic, Eavan Boland, and Lucille Clifton.
In addition to its role as a venue for nationally and internationally recognized poets, Folger Poetry is a local institution and collaborates with Washington, DC, area organizations. Folger Poetry collaborates with the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities to present the annual “Poets in Progress” reading and the “Latino Writers Week” celebration, and with Para Eso La Palabra, a collective of local Latino writers, artists, and musicians, to present their Spanish-language peñas every other month at the Folger’s Haskell Center.
Folger Poetry's Poetry in Schools program strives to enrich the Washington, DC, community by bringing world-renowned poets into the classrooms of public high schools.
Folger Poetry's Shakespeare's Sisters educates high school students on female poets from Shakespeare's time to the present and allows them rare access to the library's resources during the ten-week seminar.
