Tuesday Sep 30, 2025
6:30 pm - 8:30 pm
POWERHOUSE Arena
28 Adams Street (Corner of Adams & Water Street across from the Archway)
Brooklyn , NY
11201
Celebrating a Century of Poetry in The New Yorker
Seriously Entertaining — House of SpeakEasy’s critically-acclaimed literary cabaret — is coming to powerHouse Books to Seriously Celebrate A Century of Poetry in The New Yorker: 1955-2025. Join us to hear original storytelling from poets featured in the anthology, including Billy Collins and Monica Youn.
Hosted by Kevin Young (poetry editor at The New Yorker) and Lucas Wittmann (Executive Director of The 92nd Street Y Unterberg Poetry Center and Co-Founder of House of SpeakEasy), the evening promises sharp wit, unforgettable storytelling, and a glimpse into the magazine’s storied literary legacy.
Students from Williamsburg High School of Arts and Technology will also read poems from their spring poetry workshop with House of SpeakEasy.
About House of SpeakEasy.
House of SpeakEasy is grounded in the belief that the ability to read and write enables a person to know their rights, be confident in their identity, and engage boldly and empathetically with the world around them. All of our programs support reading, writing, and public participation in literary culture. On stage. In schools. On the road.
About A Century of Poetry in The New Yorker: 1955-2025.
Edited by the magazine’s poetry editor, Kevin Young, a celebratory selection from one hundred years of influential, entertaining, and taste-making verse in The New Yorker. The anthology is organized into sections honoring times of day (“Morning Bell,” “Lunch Break,” “After-Work Drinks,” “Night Shift”), allowing poets from different eras to talk back to one another in the same space, intertwined with chronological groupings from the decades as they march by.
About the Hosts.
Kevin Young is the author of fifteen books of poetry and prose, including Stones, shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize; Brown; Blue Laws: Selected & Uncollected Poems 1995-2015, longlisted for the National Book Award; Book of Hours, winner of the Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets; Jelly Roll: a blues, a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Poetry; Bunk a New York Times Notable Book, longlisted for the National Book Award and named on many “best of” lists for 2017; and The Grey Album, winner of the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize and the PEN Open Book Award, a New York Times Notable Book, and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism.
The poetry editor of the New Yorker, where he hosts the Poetry Podcast, Young is the editor of eleven other volumes, including A Century of Poetry in the New Yorker, 1925-2025 and the acclaimed anthology African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle & Song. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Society of American Historians, and was named a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2020.
Lucas Wittmann is the Executive Director of The 92nd Street Y Unterberg Poetry Center. Previously, he was an Editorial Director at TIME and the literary editor of The Daily Beast and Newsweek. He also worked in book publishing at Regan Arts and W. W. Norton. Mr. Wittmann is the recipient of a National Magazine Award, and has spoken on NPR and at CUNY, Columbia, NYU, and The New School about publishing, literary culture, and books. He attended the Columbia University Publishing Course, Oxford University, and Georgetown University.
About the Poets.
Billy Collins is the author of twelve collections of poetry including Whale Day, The Rain in Portugal, Aimless Love, Horoscopes for the Dead, Ballistics, The Trouble with Poetry, Nine Horses, Sailing Alone Around the Room, Questions About Angels, The Art of Drowning, and Picnic, Lightning. He is also the editor of Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry, 180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day, and Bright Wings: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems About Birds. A former Distinguished Professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York, Collins served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003 and as New York State Poet from 2004 to 2006. In 2016 he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in Florida with his wife Suzannah.
Monica Youn is the author of From From (Graywolf Press, 2023), which was a finalist for the 2023 National Book Award in Poetry; Blackacre (Graywolf Press, 2016), winner of the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America; Ignatz (Four Way Books, 2010), a finalist for the 2010 National Book Award in Poetry; and Barter (Graywolf Press, 2003).
Youn is the recipient of the Levinson Prize, as well as fellowships from the Library of Congress, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, and Stanford University, among others. She is also known for her work as a lawyer specializing in election law, and was the Guest Editor for Poem-a-Day in May 2020. She is an associate professor at the University of California, Irvine, and a member of the Racial Imaginary Institute. Youn lives in Brooklyn, New York.