NEWS & PROGRAMS | WB Yeats Society of NY

Upcoming Programs

Yeats Poetry Prize, Thursday, April 24
'Taste of Yeats Summer School,' Saturday, April 25
Special Reading of 3 Yeats Plays, Sunday, April 27

Thursday, April 24, 6:30 p.m. Readings marking Poetry Month and presentation of the 2025 Yeats Poetry Prizes

by competition January Gill O’Neil. At Barnes & Noble Union Square,33 East 17th Street between Park Avenue South and Fourth Avenue. Free.

Saturday, April 26, 10 a.m. -- 4:30 p.m.

“A Taste of the Yeats Summer School”

All-day program evoking the spirit of the school in Ireland (see below). 10:15 “Byzantium and Ireland” Prof. Robert Doggett (SUNY Geneseo) postulates that WBY’s “Sailing to Byzantium,” written when he was a senator in the new Irish Free State, aims to create a “unity of culture” for Ireland. 11:30 “Star to Star: a Musical Duet between Poets” In a recording we hear the words of WBY and his friend and fellow Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, accompanied by music and still photos. 12:15 a light lunch. 1:30 “Quotable Yeats–the Foam and the Deep” Joseph Hassett talks about the many Yeats lines that not only capture a thought suitable for a particular life occasion but also open the door to deeper understanding of his poetry. 2:30 “Wandering Stars” A staged reading of a short play by Joseph Hassett that presents a revealing conversation between WBY and James Joyce. 3:30 Social and Summer School reunion, with wine, refreshments and conversation. At NYU Glucksman Ireland House, 1 Washington Mews, on Fifth Avenue, half block south of 8th Street, just above Washington Square.

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"Taste" Reservation Form (copy, paste, mail)

Make check payable and mail to:

WB Yeats Society of NY, National Arts Club

15 Gramercy Park South, New York, NY, 10003.

Number of registrants ______

--All day + lunch & social @ $39 $ ______

--Morning only @ $20 $ ______

--Lunch @ $10 $ ______

--Afternoon only & social @ $20 $ ______

TOTAL ENCLOSED $ ______

Include name(s), address, city, state, zip code. Also, phones (optional): Home ______________ Cellphone ______________

E-mail address ______________

Confirm attendance by email to board volunteer, Don Bates -- batesdon1@msn.com

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SPECIAL W.B. YEATS EVENT

Sunday, April 27, 2:00-3:00 pm, NYC

Admission, $10 at the door

The public and Yeats fans are invited to attend a rare professional reading of three of WB Yeats’s short plays – Purgatory, Calvary, and Resurrection – performed by the classic theater ensemble, Actors Shakespeare Company. Co-sponsored by the WB Yeats Society of NY, the performance will be held at the Episcopal Actors Guild Hall, located on the grounds of the lovely Church of the Transfiguration (also known as The Little Church Around the Corner) at One East 29th St (midblock between Madison and Fifth Avenues), NYC. The entrance is left of the church. The weather forecast is "sunny/cloudy 54 degrees." With Shakespeare as its creative core, ASC performs classic theater that entertains, inspires, and empowers audiences, students, and artists of all ages and backgrounds.

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Wednesday, July 23 - Friday, August 1 Yeats Summer School in Ireland. Presenters include: Lucy Collins (UCD) and Robert Doggett (SUNY Geneseo) co-directors; and Eric Falci (University of Califoria, Berkeley), Fran Brearton (Queen’s University Belfast), Peter McDonald (Oxford), Melinda Szuts (Budapest), Tara Stubbs (Oxford). Poetry workshop with Vona Groarke. Talks, walks, poetry, drama and music. Boat trip to Lake Isle of Innisfree, Yeats tour of Sligo, “Yeats and Magic,” video workshop, watercolor class. Visit Yeats Society, Sligo website, YeatsSociety.com, for rates for full 9-day and shorter registrations, and for information on scholarships. Inquire about a discount for WB Yeats Society of NY members. Write Yeats Society, Douglas Hyde Bridge, Sligo, Ireland or Info@YeatsSociety.com, telephone 011-353-7191-42693.

More programs to be announced later. See PAST EVENTS for list of previous programs in 2023/2024/2025.

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Yeats-Related News

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.

2025 Yeats Poetry Prizes Announced:

Winners from United Kingdom, 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.

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."

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.”