NMSPS Projects
Ongoing NMSPS projects are listed below. Click on a project name to jump to more information about that project. If you have a project to propose for NMSPS sponsorship, check out our Project Funding Opportunities. If you have an event you want listed on our Calendar, request an event listing.
needed!
Contact JC Wayne, Youth Chair
Poets in the Classroom…
- Inspire and excite children about poetry
- Help children learn how to write poetry
- Encourage children to write about their diverse backgrounds
- Inspire in children a love of poetry that will last a lifetime
This ongoing project, which just celebrated its tenth year, continues to thrive and evolve. This past winter, thirty poets partnered with the Albuquerque Museum in an exhibit-based program to do poetry with whole families. Poets also engaged fifteen classrooms at Washington Middle School. More classroom visits were scheduled, but had to be called off when Albuquerque Public Schools (APS) were closed as part of COVID-19 restrictions. We look forward to partnering with both APS and the Albuquerque Museum again in the coming school year. Watch this space for updates!
Poets in the Garden
The Albuquerque Public Library and the NM State Poetry Society sponsor an afternoon of poetry at the Juan Tabo Library in Albuquerque every April in commemoration of poetry month. A slate of guest and youth poets are featured in honor of Elizabeth Galligan, the original sponsor of this event. Juan Tabo Branch Library is located at 3407 Juan Tabo NE, Albuquerque, NM 87111, between Comanche and Candelaria on the West side of the street.
Poets’ Picnic
Sponsored by NMSPS and the Albuquerque Open Space Visitor Center, the Poets’ Picnic takes place every May at the Albuquerque Open Space Visitor Center. This day-long outdoor event features poetry readings, workshops, music, food, books, and more in a beautiful location. Nature haiku are solicited every February and a selection of those submitted are calligraphed by Escribiente, Albuquerque’s calligraphic society, onto brown paper “weathergrams” and hung around the grounds of Open Space Visitor Center. The calligraphed poems are also published as a chapbook, which is sold to benefit Open Space Visitor Center.
May 20, 2023 is this year’s date for the Poets Picnic! Come to the Open Space Visitor Center in ABQ from 10am to 4pm to join in the festivities!
Speak with the Poet (SWTP)
Sponsored by NMSPS and the Albuquerque chapter of the National Organization for Women (Abq-NOW), Speak with the Poet (SWTP) honors the 100th anniversary of American women gaining the right to vote.
Before COVID-19 health restrictions put the project on hold, NMSPS poets were popping up all around Albuquerque to listen to people speak about a woman or girl important in their life. Poets then wrote a short poem for the speaker about that woman or girl, read it to the speaker, and gave them a signed copy to take home.
Some of the poems from this project will be published in an anthology and/or turned into a play about the lives of girls and women in New Mexico. NMSPS poets will resume the SWTP sessions as soon as possible. Watch this space for updates!
Last updated on May 4, 2023