Hosting more than 800 of the world’s most acclaimed poets and performers between 1966 and 2009, Pittsburgh’s International Poetry Forum helped to establish the “steel city” as a cynosure of poetry and the arts.
International Poetry Forum founder and director Sam Hazo explains that the goal of the forum was to create a space where “poetry could speak for itself in a public setting.” And for forty-three years, the International Poetry Forum did just that– offering poets and performers from all over the world a place to share their art, and providing poetry enthusiasts a place to nourish their souls—right in the heart of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.