A presentation by Edward Hirsch, poet and president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and James Davis May, poet; followed by the poetry contest award ceremony

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In his national bestseller How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry, the poet Edward Hirsch writes that “the lyric poem is a highly concentrated and passionate form of communication between strangers—an immediate, intense, and unsettling form of literary discourse.” He goes on to argue that “Reading poetry is a way of connecting—through the medium of language—more deeply with yourself even as you connect more deeply with another.” So the reading of poetry creates a unity between the reader and the poet that did not previously exist. Hirsch, who serves as the president of the Guggenheim Foundation and has authored nine books of poetry, including Wild Gratitude, which won the National Book Critics’ Circle Award, will be on hand to discuss poetry and what role it can play in this age of fragmentation, with last year's NYE poetry contest winner, James Davis May.

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