News & Events
Recent and upcoming programs are listed in this section. Reserve attendance accordingly. Past events are listed under "Previous Programs."
Monday, November 13, 4:30 p.m.: Visit to the New York Public Library’s Berg Collection, which houses much material related to Yeats and his circle. We’ll hear a talk, then walk about and inspect items more closely. This event is limited to the first 25 people who register with us. Email our board member Don Bates at BatesDon1@msn.com with the name(s) of the people you’re registering. You will receive a return e-mail confirming your attendance, with directions to the collection and other important information. Free. Afterward, we can view the Yeats sidewalk plaque on “Library Way” (East 41 Street) and stop for a drink at the Library Hotel (299 Madison Avenue).
Friday, December 1-Sunday, December 3, Irish Arts Center’s 14th Annual PoetryFest: Friday 8 p.m. special guests and festival poets share their favorite Irish verses ($25 includes after party, other events free); Saturday 2 p.m. Elisa Gonzalez and Padraig Regan, 3:30 Tara Bergin and Timothy Donnell, 5 p.m. Sara Berkeley and Terrance Hayes; Sunday 1 p.m. Mary Noonan and Tom Sleigh, 2:30 Thomas McCarthy and Sharon Olds in conversation with the festival’s curator Nick Laird and reading poems they would bring to a deserted island, 4 p.m. Thomas McCarthy and Sharon Olds. 726 11th Avenue at 51st Street. Book tickets at IrishArtsCenter.org/Event/14th-Annual-Poetryfest.
Monday, December 4, 6 p.m.: 2023 Holiday Party at Wolfe Tone’s Pub, 37 East 29th Street, just west of Park Avenue South. Music by Gabriel Donohue, including some of his settings of Yeats poems. Cash bar and social with music from 6 p.m., dinner at 7:30. $90 reception and dinner, or $25 for reception only, if your check is in our mailbox at the National Arts Club by December 1; both $5 higher at door (if space available). The pub’s collection of Yeats memorabilia makes an excellent setting!
Friday, January 26 - Sunday, January 28: Yeats Winter School at Sligo Park Hotel in Ireland. Details coming at YeatsSociety.com.
Coming in 2024
Thursday, February 1, 6 p.m.: Yeats vs. Shaw’s John Bull’s Other Island: Talk by David Staller of Gingold Group, which produces Shaw’s plays. At 520 Eighth Avenue (27th Street).
Early April (date to be announced), Readings marking Poetry Month and presentation of the Yeats Poetry Prize by competition judge January Gill O'Neil. At Barnes & Noble Union Square, 33 East 17 Street at Park Avenue South. Competition begins November 1st. See Awards section on this site.
Saturday, April 20, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.: A Taste of the Yeats Summer School at NYU Glucksman Ireland House. Details to come.
Thursday, July 11- Friday, July 19: 65th Yeats International Summer School in Ireland. Details coming at YeatsSociety.com.
More programs to be announced later.
Canadian folksinger-songwriter Loreena McKennitt (right) visited the National Arts Club October 19 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."
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.”