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Free events for Thursday, 06/25/26
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Are you looking for literary events like book readings, book signings, poetry readings? Then you came to the right place. Start using these unique New York City opportunities today!
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12 free poetry readings, book signings, author readings in New York City (NYC) Thu, 06/25/2026 - and on...

Not a day goes by in New York City (NYC) without a free poetry reading or a book signing or a book reading by a famous or not yet famous author. Don't miss the opportunities that only New York provides!

        

Poetry Reading | An Evening of Poetry in the Garden


Enjoy an outdoor poetry reading hosted in partnership with McNally Jackson. Submit your work at the link provided to read at the event!
   New York City, NY; NYC
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Sun, Jun 28
5:00 pm
Free
Poetry Readings, June 28, 2026, 06/28/2026, An Evening of Poetry in the Garden

Author Reading | New Yorker-Contributor Shares His New Novel, The Au Pair


Teddy Wayne reads from his latest novel, The Au Pair. With inexorable momentum and sly, lucid prose, The Au Pair is a sleek literary thriller about desire, deception, and the unraveling of a man as he grapples with his fading relevance—when the lies others spin pale beside the fictions we tell ourselves.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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Mon, Jun 29
6:00 pm
Free
Author Readings, June 29, 2026, 06/29/2026, New Yorker-Contributor Shares His New Novel,&nbsp;The Au Pair

Reading | Socialize with Likeminded Readers (Outdoors)


Grab a book, a picnic blanket, and a friend, and join silent reading sessions with ambient music, followed by lively book discussions with fellow book lovers.
   New York City, NY; NYC
Tue, Jul 7
3:00 pm
Free
Readings, July 07, 2026, 07/07/2026, Socialize with Likeminded Readers (Outdoors)

Poetry Reading | USA 250 Poetry Celebration with Kenyon Review-Featured Writers


A tribute to poet Robert Hayden in honor of the 250th anniversary of American independence., featuring Iain Haley Pollock and Nathan McClain. Pollock is the author of three poetry collections, most recently All the Possible Bodies. Individual poems have appeared in a variety of publications, including American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, The New York Times Magazine, and The Progressive. Organizations ranging from the Cave Canem Foundation and the NAACP to the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Poetry Society of America have recognized Pollock’s work with awards and grants.   Nathan McClain is the author of two collections of poetry: Previously Owned, longlisted for the Massachusetts Book Award, and Scale. He is a recipient of fellowships from The Frost Place, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and is a Cave Canem fellow. His poems and prose have appeared in The Hopkins Review, The Common, Guesthouse, Poetry Northwest, and Zócalo Public Square, among others. He teaches at Hampshire College and serves as poetry editor of the Massachusetts Review.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Jul 7
6:00 pm
Free
Poetry Readings, July 07, 2026, 07/07/2026, USA 250 Poetry Celebration with&nbsp;Kenyon Review-Featured Writers

Poetry Reading | An Evening of Poetry in the Garden


Enjoy an outdoor poetry reading hosted in partnership with McNally Jackson. Submit your work at the link provided to read at the event!
   New York City, NY; NYC
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Sun, Jul 12
5:00 pm
Free
Poetry Readings, July 12, 2026, 07/12/2026, An Evening of Poetry in the Garden

Poetry Reading | Pulitzer Prize-Winning Writers Share Their Poetry


This event features award-winning poetry by established and emerging poets: J Brooke, Nicole Santalucia, Philip Schultz, and R.A. Villanueva.  J Brooke’s full-length poetry book, I Can Tell You the Version That Will Make You Take My Side, won the Editor’s Choice Prize at Driftwood Press and was a Finalist for Ashland Press’s 2025 Richard Snyder Poetry Prize. Brooke received two Pushcart nominations, a 2025 Best of The Net nomination, and was a Finalist for the 2025 Iowa Review Nonfiction Prize. Their work appears in Electric Lit, The Rumpus, Harvard Review and elsewhere. Nicole Santalucia is the author of Lesbian Dinosaurs / Dinosaur Lesbians), The Book of Dirt, Spoiled Meat, and Because I Did Not Die. She’s a recipient of the Charlotte Mew Chapbook Prize and the Edna St. Vincent Millay Poetry Prize. Philip Schultz is the author of nine poetry collections, including the Pulitzer Prize–winning Failure. The founder and director of The Writers Studio, he’s won a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Levinson and Lamont prizes, and is co-editor of The Pushcart Book of 21st Century Poetry and Prose. R.A. Villanueva is the author of two award-winning collections of poetry: A Holy Dread and Reliquaria. New work has been featured by the Academy of American Poets and National Public Radio—and his writing appears widely in international publications such as Poetry London and The Poetry Review.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Jul 14
6:00 pm
Free
Poetry Readings, July 14, 2026, 07/14/2026, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Writers Share Their Poetry

Poetry Reading | Poetry Open Mic: Share Your Work or Listen to Emerging Writers


Participants can share their original work for up to five minutes. Space is limited to 15 readers; show up on time to get a slot!
   New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Jul 16
5:30 pm
Free
Poetry Readings, July 16, 2026, 07/16/2026, Poetry Open Mic: Share Your Work or Listen to Emerging Writers

Poetry Reading | Poetry Salon: Decolonial & Ecofeminist Poet Cecilia Vicuña (+ Live Music& Poet Interview) (In Person AND Online!)


This World Poetry Salon event encourages attendees to experience words and music from around the globe. Each event features readings by a celebrated poet set to live music by a musician of the same cultural background. This salon will feature a reading by poet Cecilia Vicuña accompanied by musician Ricardo Gallo. A printout will be available for attendees to follow along with Vicuña's poetry during the reading. Following the reading, Vicuña will be interviewed by event host Patricio Ferrari.  Cecilia Vicuña's poetic work in space, performance, and visual arts is considered a decolonizing vision that anticipates ecofeminism. She created the autonomous concept of "Precarious Art" in the mid-1960s in Chile to name what disappears. “Arte Precario” stands as a new independent and non-colonized category for her precarious works composed of structures that disappear in the landscape, which include her quipus (knot in Quechua), envisioned as poems in space. Vicuña has re-invented the ancient Pre-Columbian quipu system of non-writing with knots through ritual acts that weave the urban landscape, rivers and oceans, as well as people, to re-construct a sense of unity and awareness of interconnectivity. These works bridge art and poetry as a way of “hearing an ancient silence waiting to be heard.” Born in Bogotá, Colombia and based in New York, composer Ricardo Gallo has written for acoustic and electro-acoustic formats, for short films, videos, dance, installations, and multimedia stage productions, and has performed and written for improvisatory groups.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Jul 16
6:30 pm
Free
Poetry Readings, July 16, 2026, 07/16/2026, Poetry Salon: Decolonial & Ecofeminist Poet Cecilia Vicu&ntilde;a (+ Live Music& Poet Interview) (In Person AND Online!)

Poetry Reading | Live Music & Poetry with Eileen Myles & More (Outdoors)


An evening of poetry and music in the park! This event features Eileen Myles, Yaissa Jiménez, and musician Samantha Crain.
   New York City, NY; NYC
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Fri, Jul 17
5:00 pm
Free
Poetry Readings, July 17, 2026, 07/17/2026, Live Music & Poetry with Eileen Myles & More (Outdoors)

Poetry Reading | Pushcart Prize-WInning Writers Share an Evening of Original Poetry


Award-winning poetry by established and emerging poets: Adrian Matejka and Elizabeth Scanlon. Adrian Matejka is the author of eight books, most recently Be Easy: New & Selected Poems. His previous works include The Big Smoke, which was awarded the 2014 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize in poetry, and Somebody Else Sold the World, a finalist for the UNT Rilke Prize and the Indiana Authors Award. His first graphic novel, Last On His Feet: Jack Johnson and the Battle of the Century, was selected by the New York Public Library as one of the ten best books of 2023 and was a finalist for the 2024 Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Work.  Elizabeth Scanlon is the Editor-in-Chief of The American Poetry Review. She is the author of Whosoever Whole, Lonesome Gnosis, The Brain Is Not the United States/The Brain Is the Ocean, and Odd Regard. She is a Pushcart Prize winner, and her poems have appeared in many magazines, including Boston Review, Ploughshares, Poetry Ireland, Poetry London, and others. 
   New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Jul 21
6:00 pm
Free
Poetry Readings, July 21, 2026, 07/21/2026, Pushcart Prize-WInning Writers Share&nbsp;an Evening of Original Poetry

Poetry Reading | An Evening of Poetry in the Garden


Enjoy an outdoor poetry reading hosted in partnership with McNally Jackson. Submit your work at the link provided to read at the event!
   New York City, NY; NYC
Join the Club!
Go!
Sun, Jul 26
5:00 pm
Free
Poetry Readings, July 26, 2026, 07/26/2026, An Evening of Poetry in the Garden

Poetry Reading | Pushcart Prize-WInning Writers Share an Evening of Poetry


Award-winning poetry by established and emerging poets: Beth Ann Fennelly, David Baker, Maya C. Popa, and Owen Lewis. Beth Ann Fennelly is a 2020 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow and was the poet laureate of Mississippi from 2016 to 2021. She’s won grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the United States Artists, a Pushcart, and a Fulbright to Brazil.  Fennelly has published three books of poetry and four of prose. Heating & Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs was an Atlanta Journal Constitution Best Book. A contributor to The New York Times, The Washington Post, Esquire, and other outlets. David Baker is the author of many books of poetry. His Never-Ending Birds was awarded the 2011 Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize. He is coeditor of Collected Poems of Stanley Plumly. Baker’s work appears in APR, The Atlantic, The Nation, The New Republic, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Poetry, and is included in the landmark anthology A Century of Poetry in The New Yorker.  Maya C. Popa is the poetry reviews editor at Publishers Weekly and teaches poetry at NYU. She is the founder of Conscious Writers Collective, a global online writing platform and community providing ongoing literary education and support outside formal academia. Owen Lewis is the author of four collections of poetry and three chapbooks, most recently A Prayer of Six Wings, a finalist for the 2026 Patterson Book Prize. Honors include the 2024 E.E.Cummings Prize, the 2023 Guernsey International Poetry Prize, the 2023 Rumi Prize for Poetry, the International Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine, and the Jean Pedrick Chapbook Award. 
   New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Jul 28
6:00 pm
Free
Poetry Readings, July 28, 2026, 07/28/2026, Pushcart Prize-WInning Writers Share an Evening of Poetry
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