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 The Eighth Annual

New Orleans Poetry Festival

April 13-16, 2023 

Hooray! The schedule for 2023 is now complete. Click here to go straight to it.

Here it is in broad strokes. Weekend schedule of concurrent events coming soon.

  • Thursday, April 13, 7 PM: Locals Night Opening Gala and Fundraiser at Saturn Bar, featuring lots of local (or nearby) poets and performers, with poetry, music, and special Neo-Benshi performance of A Streetcar Named Desire by Roxi Power.
  • Friday, April 14, 6 PM: International Night Focus on Brazil, featuring bi-lingual and English readings by Brazilian and Brazilian-American poets Catarina Lins, Salgado Maranhão, Omar Salomão, Narlan Matos Teixeira, and Lia Vieira, co-sponsored by Tulane University Department of Spanish and Portuguese, on the Tulane campus, Stone Auditorium in the Woldenberg Art Center on Newcomb Place, entering from Willow St. (Bldg 82 on this campus map). (Thank you to Tulane University, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, for co-sponsoring this exciting event.)
  • Saturday, April 15, 9 AM to 5 PM, Bookfair and concurrent Readings, Roundtables, Workshops, and more at the New Orleans Healing Center, 2372 St. Claude. 
  • Saturday, April 15, 7 PM, Main Event featuring Tyehimba Jess and Harmony Holiday, at Cafe Istanbul (inside New Orleans Healing Center.)
  • Sunday, April 16, 9 AM to 5 PM, Bookfair and concurrent Readings, Roundtables, Workshops, and more at the New Orleans Healing Center, 2372 St. Claude. 

Thanks to everyone for making our job difficult by submitting so many excellent proposals. 

Bookfair tables are still available for the small fee of $100. Click here to reserve yours.

Please Help Us Keep NOPF Running by Donating Today

We are committed to the idea that poetry should be free and open to everyone, but please realize that it costs a significant amount to put this festival on. So if you can, please send your tax deductible donation to NOPF today, or, better yet, set up a recurring gift. Click here to access our easy-to-use donation portal.

Poets and website users:

If you were a registered user on the website last year or before, your user account is still active, however you may need to reset your password. Just click on Log In, above or here, then click on "Forgot Password." Please do this rather than creating a duplicate account.

2022 Recap:

With funding provided, in part, by a grant from South Arts in partnership with the National Endowment For The Arts, we had a fabulous lineup of readers in 2022. Whiting Award winner Rickey Laurentiis and Fence Modern Poetry Series winner Joyelle McSweeney joined us for our Saturday night feature, and our international night hosted the performance poet and multimedia artist Rocío Cerón (Mexico) and poet, translator, editor and lawyer Enrique Winter (Chile) along with Chilean indigenous poets and advocates Jaime Luis Huenún and Daniela Catrileo with translators Thomas Rothe and Edith Adams. Our locals night featured New Orleans poets Karisma Price, Té V. Smith, Henry Goldkamp, & Daniel W.K. Lee.

Also Check out LITWIRE, the new poetry event calendar for the New Orleans region.

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Follow us on Twitter @nolapoetry.  And on Instagram at neworleanspoetry 

If you would like to see some video highlights from years past, search for us on Youtube.