World Poetry Salon: Colm Tóibín, Martin Hayes, and Leonard Schwartz

Join The New York Public Library and Limelight Poetry at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library (SNFL) for the World Poetry Salon! 

Experience words and music from around the globe at the World Poetry Salon, a new series presented in partnership with Limelight Poetry, a local nonprofit dedicated to promoting world poetry. Each event features readings by a celebrated poet set to live music by a musician of the same cultural background. 

This salon will feature a reading by poet Colm Tóibín accompanied by musician Martin Hayes. A printout will be available for attendees to follow along with Tóibín's poetry during the reading. Following the reading, Tóibín will be interviewed by event host Leonard Schwartz. 

To join in person | Please be sure to register for an In-Person Ticket. Doors will open 30 minutes before the program begins.

For free events, we generally overbook to ensure a full house. Priority will be given to those who have registered in advance, but registration does not guarantee admission. If you register for multiple tickets, please provide the name of each person who will be attending the event or arrive with your entire party present. Only registered patrons will be granted entry into the event space. All registered seats are released shortly before start time, and seats may become available at that time. A standby line will form 30 minutes before the program.

To join online | On the day of the event, registrants will receive a Youtube link to join the program. To receive an email reminder shortly in advance of the event, please be sure to register! If you encounter any issues, please join us on NYPL's YouTube channel.

ABOUT LIMELIGHT POETRY

Limelight Poetry is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting world poetry, founded in 2024 in New York City. It invites outstanding poets and artists from around the world to share their work in various forms, with the goal of showcasing poetry in underrepresented languages. Drawing on the city's rich cultural resources, Limelight Poetry connects poetry with other art forms, fostering a global exchange of poetic expression. It welcomes audiences into a vibrant and inspiring world of poetry, music and beyond.

ABOUT THE POET

Colm Tóibín was born in Ireland in 1955. He is the author of eleven novels, two collections of stories, and a volume of poetry, Vinegar Hill. His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Atlantic Monthly, and The Times Literary Supplement. In 2000/2001, he was a Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library. He is the Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University. In 2021, he was awarded the David Cohen Prize for Literature.

ABOUT THE MUSICIAN

Praised by the Irish Times as a musician with an “insatiable appetite for adventure”, Martin Hayes is regarded as one of the most significant talents to emerge in the world of Irish traditional music. He is the founder of the musical supergroup The Gloaming, The Common Ground Ensemble, and the Martin Hayes Quartet. He is the artistic director of Masters of Tradition, an annual festival in Cork, Ireland,and a co-curator for the Marble Sessions at the Kilkenny Arts Festival, Ireland.

ABOUT THE HOST

Leonard Schwartz is the author of numerous books of poetry, including, most recently, Flacofolio (with artist Heide Hatry), Actualities I: Transparent, to the Stone, Actualities II and III: Two Burned Hotels, and Actualities IV/V Comic Earth (2021, 2022, 2023, Goats & Compasses). Heavy Sublimation (Talisman House, 2018) and Salamander: A Bestiary (Chax Press, 2017), with painter Simon Carr, are also out and about. His work in poetics The New Babel: Toward a Poetics of the Mid-East Crises (University of Arkansas Press, 2016), is inclusive of poetry, essays, and interviews. Other titles include If (Talisman House, 2012), and At Element (2011), which explore the idea of an eco-poetics, as well as The Library of Seven Readings (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2008). He edited and co-translated Benjamin Fondane’s Cine- Poems and Other, with New York Review Books. From 2003 to 2018 he produced and hosted the radio program Cross Cultural Poetics.

BOOKS AND MORE

If you have an NYPL library card, you can borrow e-books related to this event on your favorite devices. Learn more: nypl.org/ebookhelp.

Don't have a New York Public Library card? Get one here!

ACCESSIBILITY

In-Person

• You can request a free ASL (American Sign Language) interpretation or CART (Communication Access Real-Time Translation) captioning service by emailing your request at least two weeks in advance of the event: email accessibility@nypl.org.


• This venue is fully accessible to wheelchairs.

Online

• Live captioning will be provided.


• You can request a free ASL (American Sign Language) interpretation by emailing your request at least two weeks in advance of the event: email accessibility@nypl.org.

CONNECT

For general questions, please email adultprogramming@nypl.org.

Please submit all press inquiries at least 48 hours before the event: email press@nypl.org.