On behalf of the Poetry Project’s board, staff and volunteers, our heartfelt concern goes out to all of you who were adversely affected by Hurricane Sandy. Though our extended poetry community is spread out across the City, the US and around the world, many of our poets, artists and audience members live in lower Manhattan and were hurt by the storm. In order to assist East Village residents hit hardest, St. Mark’s is currently accepting volunteers and collecting/distributing donations of food and supplies in the Parish Hall from 10AM-2PM this week.

Today is the first day we are back to work in The Poetry Project’s office. As the neighborhood resettles and we are able to reach out to connect, details of how people survived and fared are surfacing. We are happy to share that the basement, where we store much archival material, didn’t flood, and to confirm that we are fully powered for regularly scheduled programming this week, with Stefania Heim and Emily Abendroth this evening and Rachel Blau DuPlessis and Tony Lopez (who made it here from the UK last week!) on Wednesday. Every effort is being made to reschedule the six wonderful writers whose readings were cancelled last week, so stay tuned.

To all those who have expressed concern about our welfare, thank you. We’re so excited to be back and want to see you soon!

Sincerely,

Stacy Szymaszek
Artistic Director