PHOTO BY DAVE DICELLO

For the first time in 15 years, there’s a new season for the International Poetry Forum.

The acclaimed forum that hosted 800 poets and performers over 43 years in Pittsburgh but ended in 2009, was resurrected last year by founder Samuel Hazo, with the appointment of its new president and executive director, Jake Grefenstette.

The season “pre-launches” on Sunday, Sept. 15 with a reading by Hazo, the first poet laureate of Pennsylvania, at 2 p.m. at the Carnegie Library Lecture Hall, 4400 Forbes Ave., Oakland. The event is free, but tickets are required. Reserve them here.

Other literary appearances this season include: 

Sunday, Oct. 13: National Book Award winner Terrance Hayes, at 1 p.m. at a venue to be announced. Hayes, who was one of the final poets to appear at the forum before it ended, is a 2014 MacArthur Fellow. His most recent works include “American Sonnets for My Past And Future Assassin” (Penguin 2018) and “To Float In The Space Between: Drawings and Essays in Conversation with Etheridge Knight” (Wave, 2018).

Friday, Dec. 13: British-American classicist and author Emily Wilson at 8 p.m. at the Carnegie Music Hall, Oakland. Wilson, also a MacArthur Fellow and Guggenheim Fellow, is the acclaimed translator of “The Iliad” in 2023 and “The Odyssey” in 2018. Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, she will be reading a collection of her works.

Ticket reservations for Hayes and Wilson will be available soon.

JAKE GREFENSTETTE, PRESIDENT AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE (NEW) INTERNATIONAL POETRY FORUM IN 2023. | PHOTO BY VIRGINIA LINN

The forum ended its run in April 2009 with the appearance of Polish poet Adam Zagajewski, although it retained its nonprofit status. Fundraising was always an annual challenge, Hazo said in an interview last year, and when foundation support dried up after the financial crisis of 2008, it could not continue. At the time, ticket sales covered only 25% of the operation costs and the forum depended heavily on foundation support and private donors. 

Over its 43 years, it brought in performers, such as Anthony Hopkins, James Earl Jones, Gregory Peck, Ellen Burstyn, Michael York, Danny Glover and Jessica Tandy. Novelist Kurt Vonnegut and playwright Tennessee Williams. U.S. Poet Laureates Billy Collins and Gwendolyn Brooks. And cultural figures Queen Noor of Jordan, Princess Grace of Monaco and Brooke Shields. 

Related: Two Poetry Collections to Explore

Hazo said that since the forum ended, many people had expressed hope that it would return. 

That hope arose when he met Grefenstette, who returned to Pittsburgh two years ago with his family after obtaining his Ph.D at the University of Cambridge in England. He also has a master of arts degree from the University of Chicago and master of philosophy from Peking University in Beijing.

Hazo said he realized that Grefenstette had the personal, educational and artistic background as well as the social media chops to take the helm of a renewed forum. 

Grefenstette says he’s working to make the forum self-sustaining. The forum launched a $30,000 matching fundraiser earlier this year, will debut a podcast “The Greatest Lines of All Time,” in early 2025 and is reaching out to schools to nurture the love of poetry and literature among a younger audience.