New Orleans Poetry Festival

April 16-19, 2026

Proposal submissions will open on September 15, 2025, and close on December 1, 2025, with notifications sent out on December 15, 2025. The confirmation deadline for all accepted presenters is January 1, 2026. Wait-list decision notifications will be sent on January 15, 2026. Individual reader proposals will open on January 15, 2026, close on January 29, 2026, and notifications will be sent on February 4, 2026.

Submit Proposals Here

There are three types of events:

Readings: A group of poets presents their poetry, often organized by poetics, press, theme, or otherwise. For example, a press might propose a reading of recent releases. This often pairs well with a table at the small press fair. Other poets might focus on a specific theme like translation, Mexican poetry, global poetics, sound, visual arts, queer poetics, film, experimental poetry, anthologies, organizations, reading series, etc. Readings/Performances are 50 minutes.

Roundtables: Poets and scholars lead a presentation or discussion on a theme relevant to poetry. Like the readings, some themes may include translation, ecology, magic, the occult, social issues, gender, sexuality, race, representation, mythology, folklore, experimental forms, hybrid forms, etc. Roundtables are 50 minutes.

Workshops: One or more facilitators lead a hands-on, generative writing session, focusing on creating new work rather than critiquing existing pieces. Workshops sessions can be 50 minutes or 1 hour and 50 minutes. Workshops may also venture outdoors as long they begin in the New Orleans Healing Center.

Note: If your event proposal is experimental/avant-garde and doesn’t seem to fit neatly into these categories, submit it under "Reading," which could also be considered “Performance.”

How to Propose

Assemble Your Group: For Readings and Roundtables, ensure you have at least four participants. For Workshops, one or more participants is acceptable (more may improve your proposal's ranking).

Register Participants: Ensure all participants are registered on the website. If you’ve participated in NOPF before, you are already registered; reset your login details if necessary.

Verify Registration: Confirm that all participants are registered. Unregistered participants cannot be included in proposals.

Prepare Proposal: Do not include participant bios in the proposal body. Participants can join a maximum of two events. If a participant is included in the Road Show, Locals Night, International Night, or Main Event, this does not count toward their two-event maximum.

Note: We provide a single microphone and PA per event; any additional technical needs must be requested in advance. As a DIY festival, you are responsible for timing and managing your reading, roundtable, or workshop. Some events may be filmed and posted to our YouTube channel. However, we do not have the capacity to film all events.

Worried about where to stay or what happens when and where? Check out our FAQ page.

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