Welcome to the Poetry Center at SFSU
Mission Statement: The Poetry Center presents and documents the work of outstanding contemporary poets and related artists, creating and preserving original new and historic audio and video recordings, while assuring public awareness of and access to live performances and archival resources.
The Poetry Center organizes public readings, performances, and poetry-related talks each year, on the San Francisco State University campus and at other Bay Area venues, featuring poets and writers from across the literary spectrum. The Poetry Center Reading Series is one of the longest consistently-running such programs in the country, with roots in the 1950s San Francisco Poetry Renaissance. Newly-documented program videos alongside historic recordings from seven decades are migrated to online access at Poetry Center Digital Archive.
Poetry Center Digital Archive
The Poetry Center houses the American Poetry Archives, a historic collection of some 5,000 hours of original audio and video recordings documenting The Poetry Center Reading Series from 1954 to the present.