Poetry plays a key role in New York’s ethnic and cultural communities. For many immigrant communities, poetry is the most accessible and profound way for people to express themselves. Every community in New York City has its poets. City Lore is committed to finding ways to give these poets voice, finding the venues and formats for them to convey their artistry to their own communities and to the city at large, often finding new and innovative ways to communicate across languages.​

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This spring, 150 straight-from-the-heart poems or short statements of why you believe what you believe will be selected for a new book by City Lore and Bowery Poetry. The result will be All the Voices – a book in which EVERYBODY’S voice, all across the spectrum, will be Heard and Respected.
Learn about City Lore’s Endangered Poetry Initiative highlighting poetry from the world’s threatened, contested, and endangered languages in public performances, films and advocacy.
Khonsay: Poem of Many Tongues is a tribute and call to action for linguistic diversity. A 15-minute motion poem (poem on film), each line comes from a different treasure or minority language. 48 speakers each speak in their mother tongues, as line by line, language by language, the poem is created.
With generous support from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), City Lore, in collaboration with Poets House and the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies at NYU, presents A Reverence for Words: Understanding Muslim Cultures through the Arts, a two-week NEH Summer Scholars Institute for school educators, school personnel, and full-time graduate students pursuing careers in education
Founded by City Lore and Poets House in 1999 and later produced in cooperation with Bowery Arts + Science, the People’s Poetry Gathering was a biennial event that brought together diverse audiences not only to witness stunning performances, but to galvanize public attention around issues of preserving cultural forms and languages. During these festivals in 1999, 2001, 2003, and 2006, Lower Manhattan was transformed into a poetry village for three days. The People’s Poetry Gathering was one of the highest profile poetry events in the United States and had an average audience of 10,000. Previous Gatherings featured:
Growing out of our work with the People’s Poetry Gathering, City Lore is engaged in a long term initiative to research, document, and present improvised poetry duels and contests with an emphasis on the Americas.
From 2011 through 2015, City Lore collaborated with Poets House on a series of public programs, a traveling exhibit and a website about the poetry of the Muslim World. From 2016 through 2021, City Lore hosted an institute for K-12 teachers, “A Reverence for Words: Understanding Muslim Cultures through the Arts.”
City Lore was inspired to create the People’s Poetry Project because, while many groups are dedicated to traditional music and literary poetry, no other organization is systematically presenting the diverse oral poetry traditions of New York City, the U.S. and beyond. The People’s Poetry Project grew out of the People’s Poetry Gathering, held in 1999, 2001, 2003 with Poets House, and in 2006 with Bowery Arts + Science, to bring together folk, ethnic, inner city, and literary poets.