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53rd Annual CCNY Poetry Festival, Friday, May 2nd, 2025

Featuring Hadara Bar-Nadav

Award-winning poet, Hadara Bar-Nadav, will be the featured guest poet for the 53rd annual City College Poetry Festival held at the Marian Anderson Theater at Aaron Davis Hall (160 Convent Avenue). Dubbed "the Woodstock of the Spoken Word," the festival has become New York’s longest-running poetry celebration.

"The City College Poetry Festival is the democratic voice of poetry in New York City public schools,” says Pamela Laskin, retired lecturer in the City College English department and former director of the CCNY Poetry Outreach Center, which produces the festival. “Its assumption is that there are many poets, and they all have terrific stories to tell. This would make Walt Whitman proud."

Schools from all five boroughs attend, read, and enjoy poetry at the festival. The festival is "something the children always look forward to," said Deborah Newman, a former teacher at P.S. 368 in Brooklyn, who had been attending the festival for over 13 years. "It's a blessing, something that is real to them, and it's an entire year of poetry for the children, leading up to this celebration. The teachers and the administrators love it, too."

Some of the children who participated in the festival's early years are now teachers who bring their classes. "In 1975, I introduced a third-grade student to the audience of 400 cheering students, teachers, friends and family; in 1996, this same individual returned to the festival at City and introduced the readers from her fourth-grade class," recalls Barry Wallenstein, CCNY professor emeritus and former festival founder. "Over the past four decades, this event has become a place of reunion and affirmation for City College alumni, returning teachers, student-poets and friends of the College."

"It’s quite extraordinary mentoring these young students. They see the world with such different eyes, and then write without censoring themselves, with freedom," says Adjunct Assistant Professor at City College, Senior Poetry Outreach Mentor, and new co-director, Alyssa Yankwitt. "This is a moment in time when poetry is more important than ever. These students have something to say, and the festival is a place for them to use their voices."

In addition to the readings by students, each year the festival invites one or more prominent poets to read their work. Among those who have appeared are Paul Simon, Allen Ginsberg, Gwendolyn Brooks, Muriel Rukeyser, Adrienne Rich, Philip Levine, Billy Collins, Major Jackson, Kimiko Hahn, Cornelius Eady, Patricia Smith, Richard Tillinghast, Tom Sleigh, Marilyn Nelson, Elana Bell and Aracelis Girmay, Tracy Smith, Marilyn Nelson, Jacqueline Woodson, Nicole Cooley, David Groff, Estha Weiner, Nathalie Handal, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Vasyl Makhno, Gloria Mindock, and, most recently, Pamela L. Laskin.

The event commences with readings by elementary school students, followed by poets from junior high schools. Beginning around noon, the winners of the festival's citywide high school poetry contest will recite their poems, with the top three winners receiving the Poetry Prize, which are cash prizes.

A reading by featured poet, Hadara Bar-Nadav, will highlight the day’s festivities.

The festival presents a special award for the best poem in a language other than English. Submissions have come from 20 different languages over the festival's history, reflecting the diversity of both New York City and of CCNY.

The American Academy of Poets continues to be a co-promotional sponsor. As always, we are fortunate to have the Division of Humanities and the Arts sponsor our event, under the wonderful tutelage of Dean Renata K. Miller.

Festival Sponsors

Axe-Houghton Foundation
Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation
Poets & Writers, Inc.
Poetry Society of America
David and Harrianne Wallenstein
CCNY President, Dr. Vincent Boudreau
CCNY Office of Institutional Advancement & Communications:
- Senior Vice President, Dee Dee Mozeleski
- Annika Lüedke, Director, Foundations and Corporate Relations
- Kelly Sullivan, Development Coordinator
Gregory Shanck, Managing Director, City College Center for the Arts
David Covington, Alumni Association
Dean Renata K. Miller, Division of Humanities and the Arts
Provost, Dr. Tony Liss
CCNY English Department, Daniel Gustafson, Chair
CCNY MFA, Michelle Valladares, Director, Creative Writing
The South Wind Foundation
Barry Wallenstein, Professor Emeritus and Founder of Poetry Outreach
Ira W. Reiser and the Reiser Family
J. Chester Johnson
Poetry Outreach’s Dedicated Board Members, and Generous Donors

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Hadara Bar-Nadav is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, the Lucille Medwick Award from the Poetry Society of America, a fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, and other honors. Her books include The Animal Is Chemical (Four Way Books, 2024), awarded the Levis Prize in Poetry, selected by Jericho Brown; The New Nudity (Saturnalia Books, 2017); Lullaby (with Exit Sign) (Saturnalia Books, 2013), awarded the Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize; The Frame Called Ruin (New Issues, 2012), Editor’s Selection/ Runner Up for the Green Rose Prize; and A Glass of Milk to Kiss Goodnight (Margie/Intuit House, 2007), awarded the Margie Book Prize. She is also the author of two chapbooks, Fountain and Furnace (Tupelo Press, 2015), awarded the Sunken Garden Poetry Prize, and Show Me Yours (Laurel Review/Green Tower Press 2010), awarded the Midwest Poets Series Prize. In addition, she is co- author with Michelle Boisseau of the best-selling textbook Writing Poems, 8th ed. (Pearson, 2011). Her poetry has appeared in The American Poetry Review, The Believer, The Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. A current reader for Poetry Magazine, she is a Professor of English and teaches in the MFA program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

For more information about the 54th CCNY Spring Poetry Festival, please contact Alyssa Yankwitt or Jennifer Buño at ccnypoetryoutreachcenter@gmail.com or visit the Poetry Outreach Center online: https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/poetry.