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| World Poetry Day World Poetry Day is celebrated on March 21st, and was declared by UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) in 1999, “with the aim of supporting linguistic diversity through poetic expression and increasing the opportunity for endangered languages to be heard”. Its purpose is to promote the reading, writing, publishing, and teaching of poetry throughout the world and, as the original UNESCO declaration says, to “give fresh recognition and impetus to national, regional, and international poetry movements”. Deadline: February 22, 2026 Virtual Event: March 22, 2026 |
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| National Haiku Poetry Day Haiku Day is here April breeze, warm and gentle Joyful holiday National Haiku Day, an initiative of The Haiku Foundation, celebrates the art form every April 17. A haiku is an ancient form of Japanese poetry that consists of three lines with the syllable structure “five-seven-five” — although this is contested for being a western way of teaching the haiku. Japanese haikus also count sounds, not only syllables. Haikus typically revolve around nature, the passing of seasons, or ephemeral beauty. At the risk of sounding like your high school English teacher, they rely more on images than metaphors. They’re also very concise, due to their short length. Deadline: March 15, 2026 Virtual Event: April 19, 2026 |
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| Tribute to Joy Harjo Born: May 9, 1951 – 2026 – 75th birthday Joy Harjo is an American poet, musician, playwright, and author. She served as the 23rd United States Poet Laureate from 2019 to 2022, the first Native American to hold that honor. She was also only the second Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to have served three terms (after Robert Pinsky). Harjo is a seventh-generation Monahwee daughter (also known as “Menawa”). Additionally, Harjo is a citizen of the Muscogee Nation (Este Mvskokvlke) and belongs to Oce Vpofv (Hickory Ground). She is an important figure in the second wave of the literary Native American Renaissance of the late 20th century. She studied at the Institute of American Indian Arts, completed her undergraduate degree at University of New Mexico in 1976, and earned an MFA degree at the University of Iowa in its creative writing program. Deadline April 26, 2026 Virtual Event May 10, 2026 |
| Remembering Hal Sirowitz Hal (March 6, 1949- October 17, 2025) was an American and internationally known poet, who first began to attract attention at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe where he was a frequent competitor in their Friday Night Poetry Slam. He eventually made the 1993 Nuyorican Poetry Slam team and competed in the 1993 National Poetry Slam along with his Nuyorican teammates Maggie Estep, Tracie Morris, and Regie Cabico. He would later perform his poetry on stages across the country, and on television programs such as MTV’s Spoken Word: Unplugged and PBS’s The United States of Poetry. He wrote five books of poetry: Mother Said, My Therapist Said, Father Said, During and After, and Stray Cat Blues. He was the best-selling translated poet in Norway, where Mother Said has been adapted for the stage and turned into a series of animated cartoons. He has been translated into thirteen languages. Sirowitz was a 1994 recipient of an NEA Fellowship in Poetry and was the Poet Laureate of Queens. He worked as a special education teacher in the New York public school system for 23 years and was married to the writer Minter Krotzer. Deadline – April 5, 2026 Virtual Event – May 3, 2026 |
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| Remembering June Jordan June Millicent Jordan (July 9, 1936 – June 14, 2002) was an American poet, essayist, teacher, and activist. In her writing she explored issues of gender, race, immigration, and representation. Jordan was passionate about using Black English in her writing and poetry, teaching others to treat it as its own language and an important outlet for expressing Black culture.Jordan was inducted on the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor within the Stonewall National Monument in 2019. Deadline: June 14, 2026 Virtual Event: July 12, 2026 |
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| Juneteenth Juneteenth, officially Juneteenth National Independence Day, is a federal holiday in the United States. It is celebrated annually on June 19 to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States. The holiday’s name, first used in the 1890s, is a portmanteau of June and nineteenth, referring to June 19, 1865, the day when Major General Gordon Granger ordered the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas at the end of the American Civil War. Deadline: May 24, 2026 Virtual Event: June 21, 2026 |
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| Freedom in the United States The United States is a federal republic whose people benefit from a vibrant political system, a strong rule-of-law tradition, robust freedoms of expression and religious belief, and a wide array of other civil liberties. However, in recent years its democratic institutions have suffered erosion, as reflected in rising political polarization and extremism, partisan pressure on the electoral process, mistreatment and dysfunction in the criminal justice and immigration systems, and growing disparities in wealth, economic opportunity, and political influence. Write us a poem expressing your view of the current situation. Deadline: June 7, 2026 Virtual Event: July 5, 2026 |
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| Remembering Dorothy Parker (August 22, 1893 – June 7, 1967) Dorothy Parker was an American poet, literary critic and writer of fiction. Based in New York, she was known for her caustic wisecracks, and eye for 20th-century urban foibles. Parker rose to acclaim, both for her literary works published in magazines, such as The New Yorker, and for her role as a founding member of the Algonquin Round Table. In the early 1930s, Parker traveled to Hollywood to pursue screenwriting. Her successes there, including two Academy Award nominations, were curtailed when her involvement in left-wing politics resulted in her being placed on the Hollywood blacklist. Dismissive of her own talents, she deplored her reputation as a “wisecracker”. Nevertheless, both her literary output and reputation for sharp wit have endured. Some of her works have been set to music. Deadline: July 26, 2026 Virtual Event: August 23, 2026 |
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| National Book Lovers Day Book Lovers Day is celebrated on the 9th of August every year. This is an unofficial holiday observed to encourage bibliophiles to celebrate reading and literature. People are advised to put away their smartphones and every possible technological distraction and pick up a book to read. Book Lovers Day is widely recognized on global scale yet its origin and creator remain unknown to date. Deadline: July 12, 2026 Virtual Event: August 9, 2026 |
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| Banned Books Week Banned Books Week is an annual awareness campaign promoted by the American Library Association and Amnesty International, that celebrates the freedom to read, draws attention to banned and challenged books, and highlights persecuted individuals. Held in late September or early October since 1982, the United States campaign “stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them” and the requirement to keep material publicly available so that people can develop their own conclusions and opinions. The international campaign notes individuals “persecuted because of the writings that they produce, circulate or read.” Some of the events that occur during Banned Book Week are The Virtual Read-Out and The First Amendment Film Festival. Deadline: Aug 30, 2026 Virtual Event: Sept 20, 2026 |
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| Black Poetry Day Black Poetry Day is celebrated every year on October 17 to honor all the talented African American poets, both past and present. If you’re a literature enthusiast, poet, or writer — no matter your race — you’ll absolutely love Black Poetry Day where you can celebrate black heritage and history. Black Poetry Day is celebrated in commemoration of the birth of the man popularly referred to as the father of African American literature, Jupiter Hammon, the first published black poet in the United States of America. Black Poetry Day is a day to recognize the contributions of black poets to literature and celebrate the black experience as retold in poetry. Deadline: September 20, 2026 Virtual Event: October 18, 2026 |
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| Veterans/Armistice Day Armistice Day, later known as Veterans Day in the United States, is commemorated every year on 11 November to mark the armistice signed between the Allies of World War I and Germany for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front of World War I. A formal peace agreement was reached only when the Treaty of Versailles was signed the following year. Deadline: Oct 11, 2026 Virtual Event: Nov 8, 2026 |
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| Winter Solstice The winter solstice occurs when either of Earth’s poles reaches its maximum tilt away from the Sun. This happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere (Northern and Southern). For that hemisphere, the winter solstice is the day with the shortest period of daylight and longest night of the year, and when the Sun is at its lowest daily maximum elevation in the sky. Each polar region experiences continuous darkness or twilight around its winter solstice. The opposite event is the summer solstice. Deadline: Nov 22, 2026 Virtual Event: Dec 20, 2026 |