The 36th annual New Year's Day Poetry Reading features Patti Smith, Philip Glass

US punk singer Patti Smith (AFP PHOTO PHILIPPE MERLE)

For the 36th year of the event, the 2010 New Year's Day Marathon Poetry Reading will occur at St. Mark's in New York City's East Village. More than 140 writers, poets and performers will read and perform, including Patti Smith, composer Philip Glass, and singer-songwriter Steve Earle. The event draws over 1,000 through the day, beginning at 2 pm on January 1, 2010.

Over the past four decades, hundreds of poets, writers and performers, including Allen Ginsberg, Alice Walker, John Cage, Sam Shepard, Amiri Baraka (Leroi Jones), Terri McMillan, Yoko Ono, Sherman Alexie, and Michael Ondaatje, have participated in the Poetry Project.

The Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church on 10th Street hosts literary events in New York as a resource for writers. Photographer Kate Simon donated 12 signed prints of William S. Burroughs taken from 1975 to 1997, to be sold to raise funds for the center. The New Year's reading also benefits the writing community.

http://poetryproject.org

RC