hire a typewriter Poet!
The Poetry Society of New York specializes in bringing poets to public events, private parties, and commercial environments. Wielding vintage typewriters, our professional Typewriter Poets write spontaneous, customized poems for clients, employees, & guests to take home as meaningful mementos, personalized gifts, or party favors.
IMMERSIVE INSTALLATIONS FOR EVERY OCCASION
Looking for an immersive installation or activation at your event that’s a little outside the box? From art openings to corporate events, weddings to holiday parties, and birthdays to baby showers, there’s no event that isn’t enhanced by a Typewriter Poet! Our poets create a unique and memorable experience, captivating your guests with the art of spontaneous poetry.
TRUSTED BY TOP BRANDS
PSNY’s Typewriter Poetry clients have included businesses like Free People, Opening Ceremony, Rag & Bone, The Macallan, and many more. As these companies have discovered, experiential marketing and interactive advertising help businesses truly connect with their clients. What better way to connect than through poetry? Each poem is a personal touch that leaves a lasting impression.
services offered
Event Typewriter Poetry: Perfect for weddings, corporate events, parties, and more.
Commission-a-Poem: Personalized poems for special occasions, gifts, or keepsakes.
Poetry Installations: Unique poetic experiences tailored to your event theme.
Free People
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Assouline
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The Metropolitan Opera
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The Plaza Hotel
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Louis Vuitton
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Bloomberg Philanthropy
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Supergoop!
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Free People | Assouline | The Metropolitan Opera | The Plaza Hotel | Louis Vuitton | Bloomberg Philanthropy | Google | Supergoop! |
HOW IT WORKS
Our poets arrive at your event with vintage typewriters, ready to create on-the-spot, personalized poems based on prompts from your guests. The process is engaging and interactive, allowing guests to see their thoughts and feelings transformed into beautiful, tangible poetry.
client testimonials
“PSNY’s team is WONDERFUL! For the second year, everyone was lovely to work with and a pleasure to have onsite... I will absolutely be in touch for any opportunities for us to work together again. ”
“PSNY’s Typewriter Poet was amazing! Everyone was really thrilled with [their] work. [They] are very talented and were so warm and fun to work with.”
“PSNY’s creativity and warmth with our tenants was incredible. Everyone absolutely loved their poems.”
“[PSNY’s Typewriter Poet] was a complete treasure! Everyone loved her and her beautiful poems. As you may have expected, people got very excited to have their chance for a poem, and she stayed until about 11p to accommodate them all... We will surely do this again!”
SAMPLE ON-THE-SPOT TYPEWRITER POEMS
meet our typewriter poets
Cierra Martin is a Brooklyn based poet and producer. As the host of the poetry interview series There's A Lot to Unpack Here, Cierra facilitates live honest and educational discussion of all things poetry and writing practice. Her writing is rooted in what it means to hold and let go of memories and how to leave things better than you found them. She loves tattoos and thinks that everyone should spend a day on Staten Island.
Kindall Gant is a Black femme interdisciplinary poet and New Orleans native based in Brooklyn. She experiments with visual storytelling as liberation through themes of home, heritage and history, bringing poems into conversation with expressive forms like film, visual art, music and photography. They have received support from Cave Canem, the Poetry Foundation, MASS MoCA, the Saltonstall Foundation, the Watering Hole, Studio Museum in Harlem and Ma's House among other arts institutions. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and appears or is forthcoming in TORCH, the 1619 Speaks anthology, Brooklyn Poets, Milk Press, Obsidian, and Polemical Zine. You can find more of their work at kindallgant.com.
Fi (F.M Papaz) is a Greek-Australian poet who moved to New York for love and has loved staying to build a life here. Her chapbook Distance Makes the Heart Grow (Feb, 2024) is about conquering the 10,000 mile long-distance relationship that brought her here. Her poems have been published in literary magazines in the United States and Australia and she currently serves as the Managing Editor of PSNY's journal Milk Press. She takes joy in crafting typewriter poems that are timeless and pure, speaking to the heart of their addressee in a way that can be cherished for years to come. Find her @fmpapaz on social media or her website fmpapaz.com.
Anna Genevieve Winham writes at the crossroads of science and the sublime, cyborgs and the surreal. Anna serves as the Editor-in-Chief for Passengers Journal and the Development Director for the Poetry Society of New York. She was formerly the Journal Coordinator for Oxford Public Philosophy, and she won Ninth Letter's 2020 literary award in Literary Nonfiction for a "notable" essay in Best American Essays 2021. Anna writes and performs with PSNY, moonlighting as Velvet Envy in The Poetry Brothel. Her prose appears or is forthcoming in We'll Have to Pass, Brooklyn Magazine, The Oxford Review of Books, Grist Journal, Meetinghouse Magazine online, and others. You can find her poetry in New York Quarterly, Wild Roof Journal, High Shelf Press, Cathexis Northwest Press, and others. While attending Dartmouth College (which was the pits), she won the Stanley Prize for experimental essay and the Kaminsky Family Fund Award.
Pierce Logan is a poet and teacher based in NJ. He has been serving the public typewriter poetry via QWERT Poetry since 2015. Besides custom on-demand poetry, Pierce also offers Type-Ins regularly at public libraries, creating an opportunity for others to use his collection of machines.
Andrea Neustein is a New York-based multi-genre writer and poet, with work published in the Brooklyn Rail and Flash Art. Andrea has been a poet with the Poetry Society of New York since 2023. When not reading and writing, Andrea can be found looking at birds, looking at art, curating art exhibitions, and thinking about animals.
Ari J. Lisner is a practicing writer and aspiring filmmaker whose writing captures queer intimacy against the backdrop of New York City. He has a chapbook called One Shtick Pony released by Bullshit Lit in 2023. You can also find his work in GQ, Allure, The Brooklyn Rail, Wonder Press, Blush Lit, Newest York, and others. He is online at @arisbarmitzvah.
Xander Brewer (he/him) is an NYC-based poet, musician, and performer. He has released progressive rock under the name The Ringer and holiday-themed hip-hop under the moniker Hookline, among many other aliases. He's been doing poetry since he was 14, and has participated in poetry slams around the country. He hosted the San Francisco Poetry Open Mic during the pandemic and was president of the NYU Slam Poetry Club, helping bring the team to their first post-pandemic Slam competition. He holds a BA from Boston University in Music and Computer Science and an MM from NYU in Music Technology, with a focus on improving hearing assistive devices for hearing impaired musicians.
Sebastian Merrill is a yoga instructor and poet based in Western Mass. He is the author of GHOST :: SEEDS, selected by Kimiko Hahn as the winner of the 2022 X. J. Kennedy Poetry Prize from Texas Review Press, winner of the 2024 Stonewall Honor Book Award from the American Library Association, selected by Ellen Doré Watson as the winner of the 2022 Levis Prize for Poetry from Friends of Writers, and selected for the 2024 Mass Book Awards Poetry Longlist from Massachusetts Center for the Book. He holds an MFA in Poetry from Warren Wilson College and a BA from Wellesley College.
aishvarya arora is a poet, teaching artist, and double taurus from elmhurst, queens, where they live with a parrot named scallion and a poodle named jupiter. their poetic obsessions include masculinity, t4t touch, leslie feinberg, and birds. they've received support from the fulbright program, tupelo press's merrill family fellowship, and the asian american writers’ workshop, where they were a poetry coalition fellow. their poems are featured in, or forthcoming from, poetry northwest, the margins, the hopkins review, apogee, and others. find them on instagram @cool_slug_.
Jacqueline Farrara is a poet of image and form, weaving language and light into sculptural dreams. Based in Kingston, NY, with a satellite studio in Castown, OH, she moves between worlds—photography, film, poetry, sculpture, and letterpress storytelling—blurring their edges into something intimate and timeless. Born in 1990 to a lineage of celebrated artists, Jacqueline penned her first poem at the age of eight, a spark that has since ignited a life devoted to artistic alchemy. Her work transforms photographs into immersive, tactile landscapes—greatly enlarged, abstracted prints that evolve into installations, sculptures, and living stories. In the warm months, she can be found busking poetry in Woodstock, NY, offering verses to strangers like love letters to the fleeting moment. Deeply inspired by her grandmother, a renowned Ukrainian artist, Jacqueline’s work is a love affair with tradition and raw reality. She speaks in the language of impermanence, where longing, beauty, and the certainty of loss entwine. Nature and architecture become her co-conspirators, as her installations breathe, shift, and invite the world to step inside the poetry of the ephemeral.
Emi Bergquist (she/her) is a Brooklyn based poet, performer, and content creator. Emi has been a poet with the Poetry Society of New York since 2015. Her has work published in literary journals including What Rough Beast, Oxford Public Philosophy, Oroboro, Passengers Journal, For Women Who Roar, Noctua Review, In Parentheses, and others. When not reading or writing poetry, she prefers to spend most of her time at the park with her dog.
Tova Greene (they/them) is a Brooklyn-based producer and poet-person. As Programs Director of The Poetry Society of New York, Creative Director of The New York City Poetry Festival, and an Editorial Director of Milk Press, they create immersive spaces that prioritize accessibility, collaboration, and artistic experimentation. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, their work is rooted in anticapitalist thought and deeply engaged with both ancient and contemporary poetic traditions. Their writing—often examining power, desire, and identity—has been featured in Eunoia Review, Midway Journal, West Trade Review, and others. Their debut collection, lilac on the damned's breath (Bottlecap Press, 2022), grapples with the cyclical nature of grief.
Danielle Lisa Bero is a poet, educator, and storyteller whose life is a tapestry of creativity, activism, and transformation. A Fulbright Scholar, Posse Foundation graduate, and MFA recipient from the University of San Francisco, Danielle has built her career around blending education with artistry. From co-founding a school for foster youth to serving as principal of a Brooklyn high school, she has dedicated herself to uplifting marginalized voices and fostering spaces where students thrive. Her writing, published in Highlights, Juked, Lavender Review, and Ghost City Press weaves together themes of identity, elasticity, and social justice. Danielle is also the screenwriter and director of Fruit Loops, her debut short film. When she's not coaching school leaders or crafting new curricula, you'll find her running poetry workshops, leading empowerment programs for young girls, or dreaming up ways to bring art and education to the forefront of everyday life. Follow her journey at @BeroQueensPoet or visit www.DanielleBero.com
Mya Matteo Alexice is a Black and white graduate of the Rutgers-Newark MFA. A Cave Canem fellow and pseudo-librarian, they are the author of A Shape We’ve Yet to Name (Game Over Books), which was named one of the New York Public Library’s “Favorite Poetry Books of 2024 So Far”. His poems can be found in publications such as Pleiades, Black Warrior Review, Copper Nickel, diode, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Bennington Review, Barrelhouse, Honey Literary and elsewhere. They’ve received fellowships from the Mellon Foundation, Fine Arts Work Center, and more. They were the runner-up in the 2023 Black Warrior Review Poetry Contest judged by Gary Soto. They enjoy video games where you can make the characters kiss.
Emma Sheinbaum (she/her) lives in Brooklyn where she writes essays, poems, and multimedia/video projects. Her work has been published by Barrelhouse Magazine, Cobra Milk (forthcoming), TriQuarterly, Milk Press, Metatron Press, Juked, and The InQueery, among others. Emma is also Co-Founding Editor of the genreless literary journal A Velvet Giant. The Sundress Academy for the Arts and The Poetry Society of New York have awarded her with residencies. Learn more here.
Ashna Ali is a queer and disabled child of the Bangladeshi diaspora raised in Italy and based in Brooklyn. They are a poet, editor, and educator, and the author of the collection of poetry The Relativity of Living Well (Bone Bouquet, 2024) and the Substack PAIN BABY. They hold a Phd in Comparative Literature from The Graduate Center, CUNY and are an MFA candidate in poetry at Randolph College. They are the founder and host of the music and poetry open mic, Priyo, and live with their hairless feline familiar, Kubo Avatar.
Sarah Gamard is a New Orleans native, thru-hiker, and published poet. She specializes in strengthening local news across the U.S. with a background in government and political watchdog journalism. She lives in Philadelphia and is active in the creative writing community where she organizes and attends open mics and workshops. Find her on Instagram @sarah.gamard.
Ayling Zulema Dominguez is a poet, educator, and community artist who dreams and writes toward a borderless world with rematriated lands. Their writing asks us to defy colonialism and nurture collective care in its place. Their storytelling is rooted ancestrally in the lands of Puebla, Mexico (Nahua) and the island of Quisqueya. What can language do for our resistance efforts? How can we use it to birth new worlds and weave our ancestors into the fabric of them? Ayling is a 2024-25 Teaching Fellow with The Center for Imagination in the Borderlands. Select poems of theirs have been published in The Poetry Project, The Seventh Wave, The Texas Review, The Acentos Review, and elsewhere. Ayling believes in poetry as dutiful liberation practice, writing against colonialism and toward new worlds of community care, ever-healing lineages, and land returns; won't you join them?
Kennedy Garza Brown published their poetry in Impostor Lit, Livina Press, and others. They are active within the Poetry Society of New York as a workshop leader and member. Kennedy received their BFA in creative writing at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts, and relentlessly pursues the expansion of their craft. Their work focuses on capturing the minute experiences that have rustled their soul. Born and raised in Texas, Kennedy is currently based out of New York City.
Dylan Gilbert (she/her) is a poet, editor, and educator from Michigan. She holds an MFA in poetry from Columbia University. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Maine Review, So to Speak Journal, Black Warrior Review, Plumwood Mountain Journal, Salt Hill Journal, and elsewhere.
Ahmed Elguindi is a New York based poet and writer. He is currently studying at the City College of New York where he will obtain his Masters Degree in Creative Writing. Many of Ahmed's influences are poets of the 20th century such as Frank O'Hara and Elizabeth Bishop. He is drawn to their analysis of their environments and of themselves. Something Ahmed writes about frequently. Aside from poetry, he offers his musings on his blog, The Barista Chronicles on Substack where he writes about traveling, food and sometimes a dissection of the self.
Christina M. Rau, The Yoga Poet, leads Meditate, Move, & Create workshops for various organizations, and she loves a celebration involving on-the-spot poetry. Her own poetry airs on Destinies radio show (WUSB) and appears in various literary journals like fillingStation and The Disappointed Housewife, and her collections include How We Make Amends, What We Do To Make Us Whole, and the Elgin Award-winning Liberating The Astronauts. During her downtime, she watches the Game Show Network. http://www.christinamrau.com
Jackie Braje is a Brooklyn based poet, a friend of poets, educator, and arts administrator. She serves as the Chief Operating Officer of the Poetry Society of New York, a 501(c)-3 non-profit that produces a number of initiatives to make poetry culturally relevant, fun, and inclusive. She also serves as the Managing Director of the New York City Poetry Festival, a free, annual event on Governors Island that attracts upwards of 14,000 poets & poetry lovers each year. With Stephanie Berger, she co-founded Milk Press—the publishing arm of PSNY— and serves as the Editorial Director. She teaches workshops at Poets House, and she received her MFA in poetry from Brooklyn College, where she also teaches as an adjunct poetry & creative writing professor.
Chelsea Rae Mize (she/her) is a poet and screenwriter living in New York. She wrote her first story when she was six, called “My World: The Life of a Cat.” It was a tragedy. Then a bunch of other stuff happened, she went to Duke, moved to LA, then eventually to New York. That whole time, she’s kept writing, and she’s also done many other odd jobs too. Like what, you ask? Oh you know, interviewing plastic surgeons, working as an online matchmaker, teaching yoga to children, that kinda thing. She’s sold scripts to CBS, Nickelodeon, Sony, and some other places. She spent two years writing a poem every day based on her Wordle guesses (and getting other people to do it too!) because poetry can be funny and weird and everyone has at least one poem in them, even if they don’t think they so. She also makes poetry and art zines and leaves them around the city in surprising places… maybe you’ll find one.
Steven Alvarez is a Queens-based poet and the author of the novels in verse Manhatitlán, McTlán, Tonalamatl, and the Fence Modern Poets Prize winning The Codex Mojaodicus. Born in rural southern Arizona, Steven's poetry strives for formal play and innovation, grounded in storytelling that speaks to power across languages, genres, and histories. Steven is Professor of English at St. John's University, where he teaches literature and creative writing courses, as well as his nationally acclaimed class, "Taco Literacy," which explores Mexican foodways in New York City.
Madi Zins (she/they) is from Catonsville, Maryland and lives in Brooklyn, NY. Madi is interested in intersectional, ecofeminist poetics. Her poems have been published in Quail Bell Magazine, MUSE Literary Journal, and Antigravity Magazine. This year she received an honorable mention for the Holden Vaughn Spangler Award and was a semifinalist for the Poetry Broadside Contest with lmnl lit.
Leigh Sugar (she/her) is a poet, educator, editor, and learner. Her debut poetry collection is FREELAND (Alice James Books, 2025), and she created and edited That's a Pretty Thing to Call It: Prose and Poetry by Artists Teaching in Carceral Institutions (New Village Press, 2023). Leigh holds an MFA from NYU and an MPA from John Jay College, and works for Rachel Zucker's poetry podcast Commonplace: Conversations with Poets (and other people). Formerly of Seattle and New York, Leigh currently lives in Michigan with her pup.
Jasmine Gonzalez is a New York based poet and writing poetry is how she reclaims the power over the aspects of her mental health that can spin out of control. Her poetry has been published in Lehman’s literary magazine, La Libreta, and in Spanglish Voces. Moreover, she has shared her work at open mics at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and has been featured off-Broadway at the Triad Theatre. Jasmine published her debut poetry book, Petals of the Red Dahlia in October 2023. Currently, she works as a part-time Programs and Operations Assistant at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. In the future, she hopes to publish more of her own writing to further help the agenda of giving voices to marginalized writers, especially those who struggle with mental health.
Bernadette McComish is a poet, educator, and poetry oracle. Known for her gift of premonition, she can divine the perfect personal poem for anyone using her typewriter. Bernadette holds an M.F.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and an M.A. in TESOL from Hunter College. Her poetry has been nominated for The Pushcart Prize and published in notable journals such as The Cortland Review, Deluge, Bowery Gothic, and Indolent Books, among others. Her full-length debut collection, Prophets of Los Angeles, was released in March 2024 by the Los Angeles Press. Currently, Bernadette teaches high school in Los Angeles, produces the renowned Poetry Brothel Los Angeles, and serves as the immersive events manager at The Poetry Society of New York.
Darby Mae Wagner is a writer, poet, experience designer, and sommelier with an unconventional and esoteric bent. She is the founder of GNOSES, a creative guild and studio that draws inspiration from Gesamtkunstwerk, exploring the 'hypgnostic' interplay of culture, nature and spirit through a diverse modicum of artistic expressions and immersive experiences. Every month, Darby has the absolute delight of co-producing and co-hosting Wine Poetic with PSNY. An analog bon vivant at heart, much of her poetry and personal life remains offline; however, you can find her musings--essays, abstract narratives, poetry, and the like--on Substack (GNOSES) where Darby’s musings are published freely and spontaneously. Head to SWURL Media to check out her ongoing series, 'Alter Egos', where she profiles well-known grape varieties and suggests their lesser-known alternatives. She currently resides in Brooklyn, NY.
Allie I.H.G. (she/they) is a writer and creative spirit based in the vibrant neighborhood of Bushwick. Her debut poetry collection, For the Love of Water, delves into love, loss, family, nature, and spirituality. Her writing blends empathy with a touch of provocation and intends to engage in established discourse, start new dialogues, and invite readers to ask their own questions about the human experience. Allie has shared her passion for language as an ESL teacher overseas and in NYC, working with children and adults alike before transitioning to teaching Creative Writing in an elementary afterschool program. These days, Allie enjoys crafting bookmarks and cards that she sells at local markets alongside personalized on-the-spot poetry with her vintage Royal typewriter. When she’s not writing or creating, Allie loves to unwind with a good horror film and a bowl of popcorn. You can find her @allieihg on Instagram.