Announcing our 2024-2025 season!
Our 2024-2025 Season, entitled Whose Democracy?, features six programs that explore democracy through language, spoken word, and expression. O.B. Hardison Poetry subscribers enjoy 25% savings on tickets, guaranteed seats for in-person events, book signings with the poets, and more.
Contact the box office at (202) 544-7077 or folgerboxoffice@folger.edu for more information.
Explore the season
We the People of the United States…Establish Justice
with poets Claudia Rankine and Yesenia Montilla
Tuesday, October 15, 2024 at 7:30pm
The 56th season of the O.B. Hardison Poetry Series opens with Claudia Rankine (Citizen, An American Lyric) and Yesenia Montilla (Muse Found in a Colonized Body) reading from work that explores whether “we, the people” have truly established justice for all. Poet and speechwriter Camonghne Felix will moderate a conversation with both poets after the reading.
We the People of the United States…Ensure Domestic Tranquility
with poets Blas Falconer, Valerie Martinez, and Dan Vera
Tuesday, November 12, 2024 at 7:30pm
The second reading of the season celebrates twenty years of Letras Latinas, the literary initiative at the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Poets Blas Falconer (author of four poetry collections, including Rara Avis), Valerie Martinez (Each and Her and Count) and Dan Vera (Speaking Wiri Wiri and The Space Between Our Danger and Delight) will read from their work with a moderated conversation following the reading. Bookselling and signing will be available at the reception following the event.
The Emily Dickinson Birthday Tribute
with Kimiko Hahn
Tuesday, December 10, 2024 at 7:30pm
The O.B. Hardison Poetry series, in partnership with co-sponsor, The Emily Dickinson Museum, hosts its annual celebration of Emily Dickinson with a reading by The Poetry Foundation’s Ruth Lilly Lifetime Achievement Award-winner Kimiko Hahn. Hahn is the author of ten collections of poetry, including The Ghost Forest: New & Selected Poems. From the political to the personal, to science, and to Basho’s journals, Hahn brings a lyrical gaze to all these subjects and more. A moderated conversation with book selling and signing will follow the reading, with Dickinson’s famous Black cake served at the reception.
We the People of the United States…Promote the General Welfare
with poets Camisha Jones and torrin a. greathouse
Tuesday, February 25, 2025 at 7:30pm
Promoting the general welfare is commonly interpreted as improving transportation, promoting agriculture and industry, protecting health and the environment, and seeking ways to solve social and economic problems. But what has America done to promote the general welfare of all people able-bodied and not? Folger Poetry continues its exploration of Whose Democracy? with a reading on and by poets with disabilities. Poets Camisha Jones and torrin a. greathouse present work that probes the erasure of disabled voices.
The 2025 Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize Reading
with prize judge Paul Muldoon and this year’s winner TBA
Tuesday, March 11, 2025 at 7:30pm
The Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize, created in honor of the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Anthony Hecht, is awarded annually for a poetry collection by a poet who has published no more than one previous book of verse. This season, the O.B. Hardison Poetry Series and co-sponsor The Waywiser Press celebrate the 19th winner of the Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize with this year’s prize judge, acclaimed Irish poet, critic, playwright, and translator Paul Muldoon, who will read with the winning poet. Muldoon is the author of fifteen full-length collections of poetry, and has published smaller collections, works of criticism, opera libretti, books for children, and radio and television drama.
The O.B. Hardison Series Finale Reading
with poet Ellen Bass
Tuesday, April 8, 2025 at 7:30pm
The 2024-2025 Poetry season concludes with a finale reading by Ellen Bass. Bass’s most recent poetry books include Indigo, Like a Beggar, and The Human Line. She co-edited the first major anthology of women’s poetry, No More Masks!, and her nonfiction works include The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse and Free Your Mind: The Book for Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Youth. Bass, chosen by a group of Folger Poetry supporters, will read from the work of other poets cited as a literary influence, as well as from her own work. A moderated conversation will follow the reading, with a bookselling and signing at the post-reading reception.
Subscriber benefits
- 25% savings off single ticket prices
- Guaranteed seats at in-person readings
- Ticket discounts to other programs including Folger Theatre, Folger Music, and other Folger events
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