This is breaking poetry. Literary non-profit, event series & community for poetry on current events.

Poets Reading the News is a San Francisco-based publication bridging poetry and current events. 

Our purpose is to enact poetry’s vital cultural function as a processor for violence, cultural complexity, and political change, and as a tool for insight, hope and endurance. 

In a society overwhelmed by the headlines, we’re out to prove what we know is true: in times of darkness, poetry is essential reading.

Poets Reading the News was created in 2016, in direct response to the gun violence epidemic. Our deep and fast-moving poetic coverage, dynamic event series, and teaching curriculum have helped redefine poetry’s place in the contemporary world. This is what breaking poetry looks like.



Poets Reading the News

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