TNS at the 15th Annual New York City Poetry Festival

July 18 + 19, 2026

Nolan Park, Governors Island

11:00 AM – 6:00 PM

Dear Poets, Friends, Alumni,

The New School will be at the 2026 NYC Poetry Festival on Governors Island this weekend and we’d love to involve you in person or from afar. 

We will be offering Poetry Prescriptions at our booth again this year. Would you like to do a cameo at the New School booth prescribing poetry? Serving as a doctor involves a brief consultation with the person interested in receiving a prescription and selecting a prescription from our running list.

We’ll also be running a number of activities at the booth, so please stop by and join in if you like. We’d love to feature you at our Pop-Up Reading at 4 PM at The New School booth on either day, so bring a poem if you’ll be around, or just stop by and say hi and help us celebrate the launch of LIT 43, going live on Friday July 17th.

We want to shout out poetry alumni Stephanie Berger and Nicholas Adamski for launching the NYC Poetry Festival in the first place and that events such as the Poetry Brothel, Milk Press, or other arms of PSNY continues to thrive.

What is the New York City Poetry Festival?

Every July, The Poetry Society of New York (PSNY) transforms Governors Island into a sprawling, sun-drenched poetry wonderland known as The New York City Poetry Festival (NYC PoFest). For fifteen years, poets, poetry lovers, and poets-to-be have flocked from far and wide to frolic on the island’s lush green lawns and shout poetry to the skyline; to snack on Smorgasburg-worthy treats with new and old poetry besties; to scribble odes to Victorian mansions beneath a canopy of century-old trees.

We know you want to go! This is how you get there:

Governors Island is accessible by three ferries:

• 1. Governors Island Ferry – Manhattan ($3 roundtrip)
  The Governors Island Ferries from Manhattan and Brooklyn are both operated by Governors Island and are designed specifically for visiting the island. They take direct routes to and from the island without stops. You can find the complete, up-to-date ferry schedules for each location on the Governors Island website. The Governors Island Manhattan Ferry departs from the Battery Maritime Building at 10 South Street, New York, NY. The Ferry landing is immediately east of the Staten Island Ferry (but not the same building). It is at the very southern tip of Manhattan and easily accessible from the 1, 4, 5, N, R, J or Z trains.

• 2. Governors Island Ferry – Brooklyn ($3 roundtrip)
  The Governors Island Ferries from Manhattan and Brooklyn are both operated by Governors Island and are designed specifically for visiting the island. They take direct routes to and from the island without stops. You can find the complete, up-to-date ferry schedules for each location on the Governors Island website. The Brooklyn Ferry disembarks from Pier 6 in Brooklyn Bridge Park, located at the foot of Atlantic Avenue (corner of Columbia Street). It is accessible via the R, 2, 3, 4, 5 trains and the B23, B65, B61 buses.

• 3. NYC Ferry – East River ($4 each way)
  The East River Ferry, operated by NYC Ferry, makes several stops along the East River—Midtown, Long Island City, Williamsburg, Dumbo, Wall Street—and only stops at Governors Island on weekends. A complete, up-to-date ferry schedule listing the locations of all stops is available on the NYC Ferry website.

We are Booth # 26 in the B section of the festival. See you there!