Join Chicago Public Library on April 26 for the 26th anniversary of Poetry Fest at Harold Washington Library Center. The event, which runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., features an impressive lineup of workshops, open mics and presentations all centered around poetry. View the full list of events below and learn more about celebrating Poetry month at CPL.
Haiku Fest Annual Awards Ceremony
10 a.m. - Cindy Pritzker Auditorium
Haiku Festival Chicago's 21st Annual Program presents award-winning, live readings by poets ages 8 to 14 and essayists ages 8 to 18. Student nōtan artists, musicians, Japanese Taiko hand drummers, teachers, and families around the world come together for an approximate one-hour extravaganza. Our event is photographed, videotaped, streamed online, and broadcast on CAN-TV.
Poems While You Wait
11 a.m. - Grand Lobby
Poems While You Wait, founded by Dave Landsberger, Kathleen Rooney and Eric Plattner, is a collective of poets and their manual typewriters whose mission is to appear around the city in public places – street festivals, museums, libraries, theaters and other events – to provide their patrons with a magical, unexpected, unpretentious and decontextualized encounter with poetry. No requested topic is too big or too small, too funny or too sad, too silly or too serious.
Poets Writing Chicago: A Reading and Discussion of Chicago as Poetic Inspiration
11 a.m. - Reception Hall
Join us for a reading and discussion featuring five dynamic poets from Chicago who often write about life in the city. From Chicago’s history to its landscape, people, and cultures, these accomplished poets bring their lived-experiences, imagination, and research to the page as they write Chicago. Each poet will have 10 minutes to read and discuss their work. There will be a Q&A following the featured reading.
Featured poets include Jamie Wendt, Taylor Byas, Dina Elenbogen, Tara Betts, and Rocio Munoz.
Dr. Taylor Byas, Ph.D. (she/her), a Black Chicago native currently living in Cincinnati, Ohio, is the author of two chapbooks. Her debut full-length book, I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times, from Soft Skull Press, won the 2023 Maya Angelou Book Award, the 2023 Chicago Review of Books Award in Poetry, and the 2024 Ohioana Book Award for Poetry. Resting Bitch Face is forthcoming in August 2025. Tara Betts is the author of Refuse to Disappear, Break the Habit, Arc & Hue. Betts teaches at DePaul University’s Peace, Justice, and Conflict Studies Program and serves as poetry editor for The Langston Hughes Review.
Dina Elenbogen is author of the poetry collections Shore and Apples of the Earth, as well as the memoir, Drawn from Water. She ha’s received fellowships from the Illinois Arts Council and the Ragdale Foundation.
Jamie Wendt is the author of the poetry collection Fruit of the Earth (Main Street Rag, 2018), which won the 2019 National Federation of Press Women Book Award in Poetry. Her second book, Laughing in Yiddish, is forthcoming in March 2025 by Broadstone Books and was a finalist for the 2022 Philip Levine Prize in Poetry.
Rocío Franco is a self-identified Chicana warrior poet from Chicago. She holds fellowships from Rad(ical) DreamYard Consortium, The Watering Hole, Roots Wounds Words, and Periplus Collective under the mentorship of Kemi Alabi. She is a Best of the Net nominee and a Pushcart Prize nominee.
Communal Poetry: How to Write a Group Poem
11 a.m. - Multipurpose Room B
As a student of Spoken Word Poetry, Noel Quiñones was introduced to writing as a collaborative effort. As a group, they created poems at the intersection of their lived experiences and passions. In this workshop, we will engage with my favorite group poems, discuss strategies for co-writing, and create our own group pieces to share with each other.
Noel Quiñones is an Emmy Award-winning Puerto Rican writer, educator, and performer. As a writer, his work has been published in POETRY, the Boston Review, Gulf Coast & Pleiades. As a performer, he has performed on stages across the country including Lincoln Center, Harvard University, and BAM. He currently teaches Creative Writing at Odessa College, and lives in Chicago.
Estamos Aquí: A Reading from the Chicago Poetry Center
12:00 p.m. - Reception Hall
Join the Chicago Poetry Center as the organization celebrates the city's rich and vibrant communities with readings from three Latine poets. Featuring CPC Poets in Residence Mayda del Valle, Noel Quiñones, and Maya Odim, this event will showcase diverse voices and powerful stories.
Mayda del Valle was born and raised on the Southside of Chicago. Her full-length collection, A South Side Girl’s Guide to Love and Sex, was published on Tia Chucha press. She has performed at venues across the world, including the White House in May of 2009, by invitation of President Obama and the First Lady.
Noel Quiñones is an Emmy Award-winning Puerto Rican writer, educator, and performer. As a writer, his work has been published in POETRY, the Boston Review, Gulf Coast & Pleiades. As a performer, he has performed on stages across the country including Lincoln Center, Harvard University, and BAM. He currently teaches Creative Writing at Odessa College, and lives in Chicago.
Maya Odim is a poet and performer who purposefully mounts work that challenges occidental framings—and imaginings, of performance and the performer. Of African American, Igbo and Afro-Cuban lineage, Maya is a dual citizen of Nigeria and the United States. Maya’s self-published chapbooks are titled: Places Where We Can Imagine and Planets, Gourds and Traveling Staffs.
On Rivers: A Workshop
12:00 p.m. - Multipurpose Room A
A river is a contested site. In this generative workshop, we will write and read poems with a focus on rivers. Patrycja returns again and again to rivers, real and imagined—and brings the river questions. This poetry month, we invite you to gather with Patrycja to read and discuss river poems and try out a generative writing exercise.
Patrycja Humienik, daughter of Polish immigrants, is the author of We Contain Landscapes (Tin House, 2025). An editor and teaching artist, Patrycja has developed writing and movement workshops for the Henry Art Gallery, Arts+Literature Laboratory, and in prisons. Her work can be found in Poetry Daily, Poetry Society of America, the Slowdown Show, and elsewhere.
Locked Achievements: Poetry, Incarceration, and Freedom
12:00 p.m. - Video Theater
Join us for an interactive poetry workshop exploring themes of incarceration, resilience, and self-expression, inspired by the Locked Achievements gallery. Led by Elgin Bokari T. Smith, with performances and insights from Stomping Grounds alumni, this session will feature live poetry, engaging discussions, and a hands-on writing activity. Participants will respond to powerful works from the gallery, creating their own poetry based on themes of freedom and confinement. The workshop will conclude with a musical performance by a Stomping Grounds alum.
Chicago Poet Laureate Information Session
1:00 p.m. - Video Theater
Are you the next Poet Laureate of Chicago? Learn more about the application process from DCASE.
HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT: The Art of Blackout Poetry and Zine Making
1:00 p.m. - Multipurpose Room A
This two-part poetry workshop explores poetry in our everyday lives and the art of zine making. Participants will be encouraged to examine their creativity through the technique of Blackout poetry, a form of “Found Poetry.”. Attendees will unearth poems hidden in newspapers and magazines. The workshop will also provide hands-on instruction in zine making to record their blackout poems.
Dr. Ellen Wade is an educator, poet, and spoken word performer whose writing focuses on the silencing, exclusion, and invisibility of African American Women and their narratives. A three-time Pushcart Award nominee, her new book The Devil’s Pulpit & Other Mostly True Scottish Misadventures, with Mercer’s Publishing, is scheduled to be released March 2025
The Act of Seeing Yourself: An Ekphrastic Workshop
1 p.m. - Multipurpose Room B
Ekphrasis is a correspondence between the self, the art, and the artist. In this ekphrastic workshop, writers of all levels are invited to witness the relationship between poetry and visual art. Participants will play a game of association, gain new vocabulary to discuss art and poetry, and generate writing based on local and contemporary art.
Madeline McConico and Sarah Peecher both received their MFAs in Creative Writing from Columbia College Chicago and teach undergraduate writing at local Chicago universities. They have facilitated two workshops as programming related to their exhibitions, our their most recent being “On the Verge of Hope.”
Keynote Speaker: Marcelo Hernandez Castillo
2 p.m. - Cindy Pritzker Auditorium
Join us for our keynote speaker Marcelo Hernandez Castillo.
Poetry Fest Open Mic with Eros
3 p.m. - Reception Hall
Join us in celebration of 26 years of poetry in this open event that allows artists of all expressions to showcase their talents in front of a live audience.
Eros is an International Award-Winning Poet and Recording artist. He is 2020's Ham Slam Poetry Champion; the C.E.O and Founder of Hot Chocolate Poetry; The National Spoken Word Awards 2020, 2021, and 2022's Nominee for Best Male Poet and Best Album; and 2022's winner for Best Host and Best Open Mic. He is curator of Chicago's first Spoken Word showcase at the Willis Tower. He has one goal: Spread love everywhere that hatred lives.
Poetry Fest Vendors
Bridge
March/Abrazo
Off the Page
Poets & Patrons
Tanae Speaks LLC
Poetry Foundation
Sandmeyer's Bookstore
