The Dodge Poetry Festival Will Return To Newark In October

The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation and the New Jersey Performing Arts Center have announced that Dodge Poetry, North America's largest poetry festival, will return to Newark October 15-17, 2026.

Headquartered at NJPAC since 2010, the festival was reimagined in 2024 with a new focus on poetry as a performing art and as a tool for social justice advocacy. This season, the festival — the finale of NJPAC's year-round Dodge Poetry programming initiative — will again include events that pair poets with musicians and other performing artists, a FREE outdoor celebration for families, writing workshops with festival poets and professional development opportunities for working writers.

Over the course of more than 40 years, the biennial Dodge Poetry Festival has welcomed more than 150,000 people to spend three days reading, writing and listening to poetry, in the company of poets and spoken word artists from across the nation. The 2026 festival will feature many special events, including:

• “Patti Smith: Songs and Stories,” a performance by the revered “punk poet laureate;” 
• Def Poetry Reunion, featuring a lineup of accomplished poets who were part of the original Def Poetry Jam, Russell Simmons' groundbreaking spoken word HBO series;
• Special readings by poets affiliated with Cave Canem (a literary organization dedicated to the growth of poets in the African diaspora), Kundiman (an organization that cultivates Asian American creative writing), and CantoMundo (a national organization devoted to fostering a community of Latinx poets);
• More special headliner events to be announced in June!

Festival attendees can also participate in:

• Young Artists Day, when thousands of high school students from across the country will attend the festival for readings, performances and more events geared to teen audiences;
• Fine-Tune Your Craft, a day for writers that includes workshops and events designed to offer poets and authors resources for honing their craft and skills in poetry, created in partnership with theAcademy of American Poets;
• A celebration and open mic poetry reading hosted by Newark's EvoluCulture poetry collective, where festival-goers can network, socialize, listen in or sign up to read verses of their own;
• FREE Family Fun Day, when NJPAC's Chambers Plaza will become a poetry-infused play space, featuring poets reading on the Community Catalyst Stage, drumming and dancing workshops, and more; 
• Poetry Like Bread, a breakfast gathering where readers can share a meal with nationally recognized poets and learn more about their journeys and careers.

A full roster of participating poets will be announced in June.

Poets already scheduled to take part in the 2026 festival include U.S. Poet Laureate Arthur Sze; Pulitzer Prize winner Tyehimba Jess; best-selling young-adult novelist and poet Elizabeth Acevedo (The Poet X); former Wisconsin poet laureate Kimberly M. Blaeser; poet and Harvard University English professor Stephanie Burt; Whiting Award-winning poet Anthony Cody; the Guggenheim Museum's poet-in-residence Meg Day; poet, MacArthur Fellow and NYU professor Terrance Hayes; poet, dancer, actor and playwright Marc Bamuthi Joseph; Pulitzer Prize nominee Adrian Matejka; novelist and FIELD Poetry Prize winner Carol Moldaw; poet, organizer and youngest-ever Nuyorican Poets Café Grand Slam Champion, Aja Monet; poet and theoretical physicist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein; Palestinian American poet, editor and songwriter Naomi Shihab Nye; poet, Pulitzer Prize finalist and Rutgers University professor Evie Shockley; poet and founding member of the multi-racial spoken word poetry organization, Dark Noise Collective, Danez Smith; former Poet Laureate of Kentucky, Frank X Walker; editor-in-chief of Copper Canyon Press, Michael Wiegers and many more!

“This festival, which has been showcasing powerful poetry since 1986, offers the best of both worlds: Poets laureate and Pulitzer Prize winners for the poetry aficionados, along with Family Fun Day and Young Artist Day for those who are dipping their toes into hearing poetry read live and aloud for the first time,” said David Rodriguez, NJPAC's Executive Producer and Executive Vice President.

“The Dodge Poetry Festival is also a fantastic place for poetry lovers to discover exciting new voices. A selection committee has reviewed work by close to 200 emerging and mid-career artists for consideration at this year's festival, in addition to the poets we've already invited. We are looking forward to revealing our full roster of poets this June,” said Ysabel Y. Gonzalez, Producer, Poetry and Social Impact. 

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