PART ONE: The Poetry Project's 51st Annual New Year's Day Marathon

This event page is for PART ONE of The Poetry Project's 51st Annual New Year's Day Marathon

Our favorite event, ritual, fever-dream, party, myth of the year is back! Please join us on January 1, 2025 for The Poetry Project's 51st Annual New Year's Day Marathon.

A daylong celebration of the actualizing power of poetry and performance, the Marathon is an event that feels like it happens because it has to and wants to—because we need it to. It’s as though every year before and every year following were somehow all leading up to it—this day, a time-honored tradition and a spacetime anomaly. It’s the annual event by which we mark our calendars and simultaneously serves as a disruption to the very idea of time—a sort of ridiculous compass—a day when nothing makes sense, or maybe the only day when everything becomes clear.

We don't really know what the Marathon is, or how exactly it comes together, and probably never will. But what is certain is that the Marathon changes us every year—which is precisely the power of its expansiveness, magnetism, impact, and ability to bring us together. It is a testament to our belief that poetry, performance, the avant-garde, the raucous, sexy, surprising, subaltern, the weird, have the ability to effect change. A radical spark that stirs what is within us to ignition—a transformation and transmission that reaches beyond us. The Marathon is our annual reaffirmation in the strength of collectivity, in knowing that what we do here—together—does something.

Resonating within and across the legacies and lineages of past New Year’s Marathons—the first coordinated in 1974 by the ever-wonderful and much beloved co-founder and past Director of the Project, Anne Waldman—this monumental gathering features over 130 poets, musicians, dancers, writers, and performers who share work throughout the day. The Marathon has become our annual calling card, a rallying cry, and biggest fundraiser.

The funds raised at the New Year's Day Marathon directly support:

• The Poetry Project’s 50+ live readings and events which are livestreamed (for free!) and reach thousands of in-person and virtual attendees each year
• Our quarterly Newsletter which publishes a breadth of creative and scholarly writing
• Our learning programs which serve hundreds of workshop attendees each season, including at least 3 fully-funded scholarship recipients per workshop
• The payments we make to the 200+ performers, readers, educators, lecturers, editors, curators, and writers we work with each year—as well as the audio and video techs that make our programs possible

The Marathon is crucial to sustaining The Poetry Project’s mission to serve and advocate for the vast community of poets, writers, artists, thinkers, and students who gather and make work here, and strengthens this cultural anti-enterprise that we have been collectively building for a half a century plus.

As we head into another year of compounded grief, unprecedented challenges, and palpable uncertainty, we look forward to the possibility of being with you all on January 1. What is there to hold onto? Each other, this day, our joy, our rage. Our impossible project. How do we hold onto it? By coming together. By organizing. With impossible belief.

See you in the New Year,
The Poetry Project

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The Poetry Project's 51st Annual New Year's Day Marathon will begin at 1pm on New Year's Day and run until midnight on January 2nd. The event will be divided into two sections, which will be ticketed separately: 1–6pm and 7pm–midnight, with an hour break in between. During the hour break, the sanctuary will be cleared so that we can reset the space.

Tickets to each section are $30 in advance or $35 at the door. If you would like to attend the entire event, please purchase a ticket to both sections!

We're thrilled this year to offer a limited number of Late Night tickets, which will grant you admission to the marathon from 9pm on. Late Night tickets are available in advance or at the door for $20.

The entire event will also be livestreamed. Access to the livestream is pay-what-you-can, suggested donation $10–30.

Part Two (7pm–midnight) and Late Night tickets are available here.

Livestream tickets are available here.

PART ONE:

1–2pm, hosted by Stacy Szymaszek & Nicole Wallace:
Pamela Sneed, Morgan Võ, Emily Johnson, Marcella Durand, Filip Marinovich, Alex Cuff, Christopher Rey Pérez, Funto Omojola, Selendis Sebastian Alexander Thompson, Jennifer Firestone, Mariana Valencia, Mónica de la Torre & Hans Tammen, Greg Masters, Marcos de la Fuente

2–3pm, hosted by Pamela Sneed:
Annabel Lee, IV Castellanos, Laura Henriksen, Christian Nyampeta, Stine An, David Kirschenbaum, Lauren Bakst, Benjamin Krusling, Nazareth Hassan, Brenda Coultas, Bob Rosenthal, Foamola

3–4pm, hosted by Nora Treatbaby:
Kimberly Alidio, Vincent Katz, angela abiodun, John Keene, Aaron Edgcomb, Edmund Berrigan, Evelyn Reilly, Sacha Yanow, Precious Okoyomon, Jonathan Gonzalez, Stacy Szymaszek, Dave Morse, Jeannine Otis

4–5pm, hosted by Taja Cheek:
Nora Treatbaby, m.s. RedCherries, Nyle Kaliski, Wendy Lotterman, Tess Brown-Lavoie, Sol Cabrini, CAConrad, erica kaufman, Bob Holman, Dina Abdulhadi, Garrett Devoe, E.A. Bethea, Judah Rubin, Deepali Zeer

5–6pm, hosted by Jordan Tannahill:
Patricia Spears Jones, Jimin Seo, Eleni Sikelianos, Alexandra Egan, Edwin Torres & Ricardo Gallo, Tess Dworman, Tracey McTague, Don Yorty, Beth & Lee Ann Brown, Salma Shamel, Anahid Nersessian, Taja Cheek, Morgan Bassichis, Anthony Roth Costanzo with Bryan Wagorn

BREAK 6–7pm:
Rude Mechanical Orchestra
This performance will take place outside on 10th St. The sanctuary space will be cleared during the 6–7pm break in order to reset the space.

PART TWO:

7–8pm, hosted by Morgan Bassichis:
Alex Tatarsky, Jordan Tannahill, Niall Jones, T Lax, Mohammed Zenia Siddiq Yusef Ibrahim, Rachel Levitsky, Ryan Sawyer, Yoshiko Chuma & Dane Terry, John Coletti, Isabella Hammad, Sky Hopinka, OHYUNG

8–9pm, hosted by Patricia Spears Jones:
Anne Waldman, Sara Jane Stoner, Tamara Santibañez, Anselm Berrigan, Car Lara, mayfield brooks, Anahit Gulian, Anna Moschovakis, Yaz Lancaster, Tilghman Alexander Goldsborough, Brandon Lopez, Nile Harris

9–10pm, hosted by Alex Tatarsky:
Jess Barbagallo, Charlene Incarnate, Ted Rees, Lou Cornum, Malcolm-x Betts, Aria Aber, Sahar Khraibani, Arewà Basit, Brandon Flynn, Laura Ortman & Katherine Liberovskaya, Alisha Mascarenhas, Kris Lee, Juliana Huxtable

10–11pm, hosted by Charlene Incarnate:
Kyle Dacuyan, Sunny Iyer, Buffy, Er Linsker, Tenaya Nasser-Frederick, Char Jeré & Ava Rose, Anangookwe Wolf, Heather Glynis, Kyle Carrero Lopez & Untitled Queen, Oscar yi Hou, Patrick DeDauw, Zora Jade Khiry, Ley (Lysis)

11pm–midnight, hosted by Jim Behrle:
DAYS (Ethan Philbrick + Ned Riseley), Matt Proctor, Pedro Lopez, Jonathan Aprea, Cerine, Gary Gustavo Gomez, Mel Elberg, James Barickman, Noa Mendoza, Mirene Arsanios, Kay Gabriel, Will Farris, Anna Cataldo, Roberto Montes, Nicole Wallace, Jim Behrle

Host or Publisher The Poetry Project