Upcoming Programs​​
Announcing Deadline Extension for 2026 Yeats Poetry Prize Competition
This is a reminder that the deadline for submitting poems to the 2026 Yeats Poetry Awards competition is this February 15th (we extended the deadline by two weeks). The rules for submissions, along with related information, are on our Submittable home page at https://yeats.submittable.com/submit. First prize is $1,000, second prize is $500, and there are honorable mentions.
FREE, Yeats Salon, Wednesday, January 28, 7-9 p.m.
On the 87th anniversary of his death, a Yeats-themed salon in conjunction with the Irish American Writers and Artists and the Irish Business Organization. Rehearse a short piece of your writing – a poem, song, or observation – on a Yeats theme or one of Yeats’s pieces and perform it in front of the welcoming crowd at the Malachy McCourt Room of Ernie O'Malley's Pub, 140 East 27th Street, between Lexington and Third Avenues. Or just attend to hear the performers. Food and drinks are available from the bar. To get on the curated program list, write to IAMWAnews@Gmail.com. To attend, RSVP to AndrewJJMcGowan@Gmail.com.
Rest in Peace, Dear Scholar Friends
We were saddened to hear of the deaths of noted Yeats scholars Warwick Gould and Deirdre Toomey last month. At our “Taste of the Yeats Summer School” program on April 25 at NYU Glucksman Ireland House, Declan Kiely will present a talk written by the University of London Professor Gould, and we will have a short tribute to the couple.
Your Help is Needed, Most Welcome
The Yeats Society is seeking suitable and affordable venues for upcoming programs for our members and friends. We have several programs ready to present: Yeats and the Indian poet Tagore; Two Noble New Yorkers, John Butler Yeats and John Quinn; and the Yeats-Lady Gregory short play, The Pot of Broth, coupled with a short comic piece imagining a dialogue, in their own words, between Yeats and Jonathan Swift. Email recommendations to AndrewJJMcGowan@Gmail.com.
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More programs to be announced later. See PAST EVENTS for list of our programs in 2024/2025.
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Yeats-Related News
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When we can, we mention news of interest to Yeats Society members and Yeats fans.
​If you have something specific that relates to him or his family, we'll try to mention it. Send it via email from our Contact Page form. We do not publish ads or other promotional information about Yeats, Sligo, or Irish products, services, tours, and other commercial offerings. If we did, we'd be overwhelmed. We also don't take advertising.
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2025 Yeats Poetry Prizes Announced:
Winners from UK, NH, TN, IL, NY
The WB Yeats Society of NY has announced six recipients of its 2025 Yeats Poetry Prize, the 28th year of the international competition, open to poets of all ages from anywhere in the world. Founded in 1990, the society is dedicated to the legacy of the world-famous Irish poet and Nobel Laureate.
First Prize:
"Looming Light" by Elly Katz, New York City
Second Prize:
"The Elephants" by Leonardo Chung, Ottawa, IL.
Honorable Mentions:
"Persephone at Nine Weeks" by Chelsea Woodard, Exeter, NH.
"Song for a Spotted Flycatcher" by Harry Man, Durham, United Kingdom.
"Madame President” by William O'Neal II, Brooklyn, NY.
"Song for Bloody Memory" by Elana Churchill, Murfreesboro, TN.
Poet and professor January O’Neil, 2025 judge, praised the quality of the winning poems from among the hundreds submitted. “Once again,” she said, “we see the enduring power of poetry. Poems reveal the heart’s core. They are a healing force.”
First prize was $1,000, second prize $500. The winning poems are published in the Judge’s Report, which will appear on the society’s website later this spring. Each recipient also receives a plaque, a two-year society membership, and is invited to a free-admission public awards ceremony and reading of their poems in New York City, Thursday, April 24, 6:30-7:30 p.m. at the Barnes & Noble flagship Union Square, 33 East 17 Street, NYC. The poets will also be honored at a private dinner at the National Arts Club.
Previous judges of the Yeats Poetry Prize include poets L.S. Asekoff, Billy Collins, Alfred Corn, Alan Feldman, Jessica Greenbaum, Eamon Grennan, Ann Kjellberg, Campbell McGrath, Leslie McGrath, Samuel Menashe, Paul Muldoon, Marie Ponsot, Alice Quinn, Spencer Reese, Grace Schulman, Harvey Shapiro, and Bill Zavatsky.
For more information on the prize and the WB Yeats Society of NY, visit www.yeatssociety.nyc. The 2026 competition will accept poems from September 1, 2025, to February 1, 2026.
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​Canadian folksinger-songwriter Loreena McKennitt (right) visited the National Arts Club in late 2024 to hear about Yeats connections (she's a fan) to NAC and NYC from Yeats Society president Andrew McGowan (left). Here they stand with a sculpture by NAC member Paul Manship, who was one of the artists who submitted designs for the new Irish Republic's coinage, to be judged by a committee headed by Senator Yeats. That night at her concert at Town Hall, she mentioned the visit, as an introduction to her version of Yeats's "The Stolen Child."
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Yeats Poem Plaque in New York City on Library Way
In the late ’90s, the Grand Central Partnership transformed East 41st Street between Fifth Avenue and Park Avenue into a dramatic promenade to the New York Public Library’s majestic Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, the length of which is regularly studded with bronze sidewalk plaques featuring quotes from literature and poetry and the whole of which is now known as “Library Way.” ​
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