IT’S THE LAST DAY OF SARAH LAWRENCE POETRY FESTIVAL! Come by Sarah Lawrence College today for craft talks, generative sessions, and readings from featured poets Rosebud Ben-Oni, Natasha Rao, sam sax, Paul Tran, and Jane Wong, along with a closing reading by Sally Wen Mao and Afaa Weaver. We will be serving coffee throughout the day as well as lunch. Remember to stop by the registration table to get checked in before heading to the events— we cannot wait to close out this amazing weekend of poetry with you!
The 2022 Sarah Lawrence College Poetry Festival
The co-directors of the 19th annual Sarah Lawrence College Poetry Festival want to thank all the participants and attendees who made the 2022 festival possible. We look forward to next year! Please check this page often and follow us on Instagram for the latest updates and details for 2023 when they become available.
About the Poetry Festival
The Sarah Lawrence College Poetry Festival is the largest, open, student-run Poetry Festival in New York. Since 2003, we have been dedicated to the celebration of contemporary poetry and the creation of community around the art form. Previously, we have welcomed poets such as Tracy K. Smith, Anne Carson, Nicole Sealy, Jos Charles, Eduardo C. Corral, and many others. Our festival includes readings, panel discussions, generative sessions, craft talks, and more! We hope to see you there.
Connect with Us
Instagram slcpoetryfest
IT’S FESTIVAL DAY 2!!!
We are so excited to jump into day 2 of our festival at Sarah Lawrence College, featuring readings, craft talks, generative sessions, and panels from some of our phenomenal lineup of poets: Rosebud Ben-Oni, Chessy Normile, Natasha Rao, sam sax, Paul Tran, and Jane Wong! We’ll also be serving breakfast, lunch, a reception, and coffee throughout the day. Remember to stop by the registration table to get checked in before heading to the events, and we cannot wait to see you!
HAPPY FESTIVAL OPENING EVERYONE! We are so excited for our line up this weekend and hope you’re able to join us at Sarah Lawrence College this weekend to celebrate poetry with us! Today, we are opening the festival with an open mic in the Slonim Living Room at 6 PM, followed by an opening reception in the Heimbold Atrium at 7 PM, and an opening reading with our phenomenal poets, Terrance Hayes and Jeffrey McDaniel. Register for the weekend here: slcpoetryfestival2022.eventbrite.com and hope to see you soon!
It’s finally here! The Sarah Lawrence College Poetry Festival begins tomorrow!! We are kicking it off with an Open Mic 6pm-7pm Friday April 8th, which will be directly followed by our opening reception and joint reading with our own Jeffrey McDaniel & Terrance Hayes! Then Saturday & Sunday April 9th & 10th, join us for craft talks, readings, panels, and generative sessions with Rosebud Ben-Oni, Chessy Normile, Natasha Rao, sam sax, Paul Tran, and Jane Wong!
Our closing readers will be our own Sally Wen Mao & Afaa Weaver from 4pm-5:30pm!
For all our readings, a student contest winner will be performing as well!! Be sure to come out & support!!
Food & refreshments all provided throughout the weekend! Don’t miss out on the largest, student-run, FREE poetry festival in the nation! All are welcome, proof of vaccination or negative COVID test required at the door. Registration link in our bio!
A huge congratulations to the winners of our 2022 Featured Readers Contest! Sarah Lawrence College undergraduates Nemo O. Captain, Theodore Heil, and Babalwa Tetyana, along with MFA students Rhoni Blankenhorn (Columbia), Anya Johnson (Sarah Lawrence), and Devi Sastry (NYU) were chosen through a rigorous review process and will be opening for our poets’ Saturday and Sunday readings. Thank you so much to everyone who submitted and made our judges jobs so difficult! A huge thank you as well to our alumni judge, Moncho Alvarado! Visit slcpoetryfestival2022.eventbrite.com to register for our weekend of events and hear these poets read their amazing work!
Happy National Poetry Month, everyone! We are so excited to share our lineup and schedule of events with you as we kick off a month of celebrating poetry and community! Our phenomenal lineup this year includes Rosebud Ben-Oni, Terrance Hayes, Sally Wen Mao, Jeffrey McDaniel, Chessy Normile, Natasha Rao, sam sax, Paul Tran, Afaa Weaver, and Jane Wong. Join us April 8-10 for readings, craft talks, generative sessions, and panels, and visit our Eventbrite link here to register for all their amazing events: slcpoetryfestival2022.eventbrite.com
There’s officially one week left to submit to our 2022 Student Reader Contest! If you are an undergraduate at Sarah Lawrence College or a current NYC MFA student, click here to submit up to three poems and the chance to read with our amazing featured readers (to be announced soon!) at this year’s poetry festival: https://slcpoetryfest.submittable.com/submit/218801/sarah-lawrence-poetry-festival-featured-readers-2022.
This week, we want to highlight our amazing SLC alumni judge: Moncho Alvarado! Moncho is a sister in residence in air, a Cihuayollotl trans woman Xicanx poet, translator, visual artist, and educator. She is the author of Greyhound Americans (Saturnalia Books 2022), which was the winner of the 2020 Saturnalia Book Prize, selected by Diane Seuss. She is pushcart nominated and has been published in Meridian, Foglifter, Lunch Ticket, and other publications. She is a recipient of fellowships and residencies from The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, Lambda Literary, and Poets House, among others. She has been awarded the Thomas Lux Scholarship for dedication to teaching, demonstrated through writing workshops with youths in Sunnyside Community Services in Queens, New York. For more, check our their website: https://www.monchoalvarado.com/
We cannot wait to see your submissions!
Hello poets and poetry lovers!
We are so excited to announce that the 19th annual Sarah Lawrence Poetry Festival will be taking place April 8-10, 2022 at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville. We are so excited to be able to host such an amazing array of readers (to be announced soon!) as we come together to celebrate another year in the world of contemporary poetry!
To celebrate even more, we are also happy to announce that our annual student reader contest is open for MFA readers in NYC MFA programs and SLC undergraduate students. Go to https://slcpoetryfest.submittable.com/submit/218801/sarah-lawrence-poetry-festival-featured-readers-2022 to submit by Tuesday March 8th for consideration.
Stay tuned for more exciting updates!
A Final Thank You from Your 2021 SLC Poetry Festival Directors!
As we conclude this National Poetry Writing Month and reflect on this year’s poetry festival, we wanted to take a moment to thank everyone for coming together and making this year’s first ever virtual festival a beautiful success! Even though we were not able to join in person, we hope the weekend gave you opportunities for growth, collaboration, and community, and that you found inspiration in the amazing writers we had the honor of listening to and working with.
Thank you so much again to all the poets who were able to join us: Cornelius Eady and the Cornelius Eady Trio, Dana Levin, Meg Day, Kaveh Akbar, Adrian Matejka, Vanessa Angélica Villarreal, Cynthia Cruz, Tishani Doshi, Shira Erlichman, Shane McCrae, Ariana Reines, Jenny Xie, Javier Zamora, and our keynote speaker, Tracy K. Smith. Thank you also to the agents, student readers, introducers, the 2021 poetry festival committee, and the Sarah Lawrence College for all your work making this festival a reality.
Finally, we want to thank all of our attendees who were able to join us virtually from around the world this year. Our sincerest wish is that something this festival inspired and connected with you during a time where it can sometimes be difficult to feel inspired or connected.
We cannot wait to see you again in 2022!
With love and poetry,
Faith Henley Padgett and Emily Tuttle
It is the final day of the Sarah Lawrence College Poetry Festival!
Join co-directors Faith Henley Padgett and Emily Tuttle for a Community Write and Share at 2 PM, EST, where we will be writing and reading poetry, reflecting on what we’ve learned this week, and coming together as a community.
Then, at 5:15 PM, EST, join us for the closing reading of our festival, featuring Javier Zamora, Shira Erlichman, Cynthia Cruz, Jenny Xie, and Shane McCrae.
Tickets are still available (and still free!) at slcpoetryfestival.eventbrite.com. Thank you to everyone who was able to join us this weekend— we have loved sharing these beautiful and inspirational moments of poetry with you!