Celebrating the art of spoken poetry in Pittsburgh, PA, since 1966.
Established in 1966 by Samuel Hazo, the International Poetry Forum has hosted over 800 poets and performers in Pittsburgh, PA, and Washington, D.C.—including nine Nobel Prize laureates, 14 Academy Award recipients, 28 U.S. Poets Laureate, and over 40 Pulitzer Prize winners.
International Poetry Forum alumni include writers such as Seamus Heaney, Octavio Paz, Mary Oliver, Tennessee Williams, Jorge Luis Borges, W.H. Auden, Kurt Vonnegut, Chinua Achebe, Derek Walcott, Gwendolyn Brooks, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Terrance Hayes, and Naomi Shihab Nye.
The Forum has also hosted noted cultural figures such as James Earl Jones, Gregory Peck, Anthony Hopkins, Danny Glover, The Clancy Brothers, Brooke Shields, Princess Grace of Monaco, and Queen Noor of Jordan.
Danny Glover, Etta Cox, and Samuel Hazo
Samuel Hazo, the first Poet Laureate of Pennsylvania, invited Archibald MacLeish to give the inaugural IPF reading at Carnegie Lecture Hall on October 19, 1966. Since then, the Forum has hosted events across Pittsburgh and at several venues in Washington, D.C.
From the outset, the goal of the Forum has been to emphasize the value of poetry as a spoken art, especially in the context of primary and secondary education. In 1990, the Forum was awarded the James Smithson Medal by the Smithsonian Institution for its contributions to the arts.
Archibald MacLeish and Samuel Hazo
In 2009, following the retirement of Samuel Hazo, the IPF went on hiatus. In 2023, Hazo announced the revival of the International Poetry Forum, naming Pittsburgh local Jake Grefenstette to succeed him as executive director.
In October 2024, the International Poetry Forum relaunched its poetry readings with a performance by Terrance Hayes and reinstituted its Poets-in-Person outreach program, which brings poets and artists to speak to students and educators across Allegheny County.
Samuel Hazo and Jake Grefenstette
“Poetry has always been essential to public life in America. Poetry tells us who we are, what our surroundings mean to us. It is our way of healing and rendering justice to the world.”
— Samuel Hazo