Irish Arts Center Book Day

There’s no better way to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day than with free books! Across New York City, volunteers spent the holiday giving away books by Irish and Irish diaspora authors as part of the 10th Annual Irish Arts Center Book Day. This year the event also featured books by Jewish authors, in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the publication of James Joyce’s modernist masterpiece Ulysses, and in tribute to the book’s protagonist, Leopold Bloom. Despite the rainy day, commuters and pedestrians in every borough paused to browse the book tables and talk about literature with the volunteers. By the end of the day, the Irish Arts Center gave out thousands of free books to New Yorkers, “using the power of storytelling to bring people of all backgrounds together.”

Poetry Jukebox

Poetry Jukebox in Ruth E. Wittenberg Triangle in Manhattan.

Poetry Jukebox is a simple but ingenious project that plays poems on demand. Installed in Greenwich Village, visitors can press a button and hear poems from such New York City residents as Edna St. Vincent Millay, Sara Teasdale, Grace Paley, James Baldwin, Edgar Allan Poe, and Jack Kerouac, among others. Originally started in Prague by Ondřej Kobza, a café owner and cultural activist with passion for poems and literature, along with producer and writer Michaela Hečková, the project has spread to Slovakia, Ireland, Scotland, Bulgaria, and Germany, all with different poems in each location to reflect the literary heritage of each place. The creators of the Poetry Jukebox are focused on animating public spaces in cities and showing “how people can make their own cities more livable.”