Events

 Poets House fundraising walk from downtown Manhattan to Brooklyn. Source: Mark Woods for Poets House.

It’s beautiful to know that poetry, even in a place as restless and unforgiving as New York, can survive. It’s even lovelier to know that it’s flourishing. Proof of this is in abundance at the annual Poetry Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge.

The walk features some of the nation’s most renowned poets – U.S. poet laureate Natasha Trethewey, Pulitzer Prize winner Galway Kinnell, and presidential inauguration poet Elizabeth Alexander among them – who will be reading poems capturing the spirit of New York along the expanse of the walk from the Financial District to DUMBO. Actors Bill Murray (an annual guest and long-time patron of poetry) and Oliver Platt will also be joining the procession. The walk ends at the historic Tobacco Warehouse in Brooklyn, where guests will enjoy a dinner on the waterfront catered by Danny Meyer’s Blue Smoke.

The walk was started as a fundraiser for Battery Park City’s immaculate Poets House, a poetry library and literary center. Poets House hosts frequent readings, classes, workshops, class trips, children’s programs, and showcases, and aims to collect every book of poetry published in the United States, whether from small or large presses, for the public. First-time visits to its relatively new location across the street from Nelson A. Rockefeller Park tend to be an overwhelming experience; at the very least, they make it apparent why so many people give their support to keep the institution thriving.

The 18th Annual Poetry Walk is this coming Monday, on June 10th. Tickets for the walk and dinner are $250 for non-members. If this sounds like a lot of money for a spectacular dining experience, meeting literary celebrities, and listening to great poetry in a magnificent setting, remember that ticket sales help keep poetry alive in New York, and maintain a safe haven for all writers and lovers of literature.

Get in touch with the author @laraelmayan.