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Unterberg Poetry Center

Writing matters. Founded in 1939, the Poetry Center is where readers hear directly from the finest writers in the world — the literary thinkers and makers who animate the past, vivify the present, and shape the future with words.

Onstage, online and in the classroom, the Poetry Center is a stage and a laboratory for all that language makes possible — a place where novelists, poets, essayists, and playwrights gather to find community, revel in a story, and discover the writers “of each new era, in their brio and innovative ingenuity, as they go on enthralling the next generation with manic literary yearnings all their own” (Cynthia Ozick).

Thanks to a generous gift from the Greenwood Family, the 92NY Unterberg Poetry Center is named in honor of Bella Unterberg, one of 92NY’s founders. Through a generous gift from the Estate of Amber Walker, two of the Center’s signature programs have been named in memory of Christopher Lightfoot Walker: the Christopher Lightfoot Walker Literature Project and the Christopher Lightfoot Walker Reading Series.


The Unterberg Poetry Center receives generous support from The Bydale Foundation; Copper Canyon Press; The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation; Jill and Michael J. Franco; The Sidney E. Frank Foundation; Estate of James and Alice Greenwood; Robert A. Ouimette; Moses L. Parshelsky Foundation; Penguin Random House; Robert and Silvia Schechter; Ruth Schlesinger; Helena and Stephen Sokoloff; Alan and Katherine Stroock Fund and the Leighton Family; Eva Colin Usdan and John Usdan; Jeffrey and Felecia Weiss; W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.; and Brian and Elisa Zied.

The Unterberg Poetry Center receives public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council; the New York City Department of Youth and Community Development and the New York City Council; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Please note that all 92Y regularly scheduled in-person programs are suspended.