More than ever, art is a critical part of our lives. Through art, we are able to dream up the places we most want to exist and stoke the passion of the many ideas that live inside of us. Giving and receiving art is a true blessing. And those who support that creative, free spirit are doing a critical service to our humanity every day. If you’re in NYC, there’s a truly unique organization out there that you may not have heard about that’s been a staple advocate of writers and poets for decades: The Segue Foundation.
The Segue Foundation has supported the contemporary avant-garde poetry community since 1976, creating spaces for this art to exist and be shared. In addition to distributing influential poetry periodicals, which documented important moments in poetic movements, The Segue Foundation operates Roof Books, which supports communities of experimental poets and writers across the world. The foundation also sponsored the Janine Pommy Vega’s Incisions Arts Project, which brought poetry workshops and classes to incarcerated writers. But, most accessibly, The Segue Foundation holds a regular reading series, one that began in 1978, and continues until today.
Yes, that’s right, The Segue Reading Series began 48 years ago, but continues into our present, offering poets a venue to share their work, and lovers of art the opportunity to experience it. The official website for The Segue Series shares, “Segue is among the longest running and best preserved reading series, with most events archived as publicly available audio or video recordings. Segue is also distinguished as being among the few poetry reading series to pay its performers.” What a lovely initiative, through and through.
If you’re in NYC, The Segue Reading Series currently takes place at the Artists Space galleries, where it remains a cultural landmark. At a $5 suggested donation, it’s an incredibly reasonable way to experience poetry, and all money goes directly to the artists. Of course, if you can’t attend in person, worry not! You can attend virtually via Zoom; which is honestly pretty amazing.
And some cool artists are making their appearance at The Segue Reading Series, ones you won’t want to miss experiencing. We at Nerdist, heard about it because Eric Bogosian, one of the actors from our favorite show, Interview with the Vampire, will be doing a reading as part of the series. He’ll be joined by author Bunny Rogers. If you’d like to know more, there’s currently a whole lineup of truly awesome artists who will be participating in the readings available for you to check out on the website.
Additionally, the details to attend The Segue Reading Series’ events are below:
Saturdays, 5:00 – 6:30 pm ET
Live at Artists Space and live-streaming on Zoom
Event starts promptly! Door at 4:30. Arrive early to catch the art exhibits.
Admission: $5 via Paypal, Venmo or Zelle. Proceeds go directly to the readers.
Zoom ID: 893 9594 7519 – Launch Zoom Webinar
All of that sounds pretty cool to us. If it does to you as well, and you’d like to help support this cool initiative and everything The Segue Foundation is doing for all the artists out there trying to make their art, you can donate to the foundation today. You can also follow the organization on Instagram to hear all about what it’s up to.
We’ll see you at the next reading!