Sri Chinmoy Poetry Festival

in a garden-like meditative setting

The Sri Chinmoy Poetry Festival, founded in 2009, is an annual event occurring in New York City and in additional venues throughout the year. Its focus is the poetry of Sri Chinmoy and the genre of poetry, which he loved so well. The Festival’s focus is the spiritual poetry of the great “student of peace”, Sri Chinmoy. It encompasses a broad exploration of life through the arts, with music and art filling the air.

Participants have included poet, educator and best-selling author Edward Hirsch, Janaka Alan Spence (the Edinburgh Makar/Poet Laureate of Edinburgh), Olympic gold medalist Carl Lewis, and stage and screen actress Judith Light. Former United Nations Under-Secretary-General Anwarul K. Chowdhury and Aye Aye Thant, daughter of third United Nations U Thant, are frequent guest presenters.

The Festival is presented in close association with the Jharna-Kala Art Foundation, Ranjana K. Ghose, Director, with Nayana Tara Hein serving as Director of the Poetry Festival.

Sri Chinmoy was a mystic poet, artist, musician, composer and sportsman. Born in India in 1931, he made his home in New York beginning in 1964, and began conducting twice-weekly meditation sessions at the United Nations at the invitation of then Secretary-General U Thant in 1970. He wrote prolifically in both English and his native Bengali, with many of his lyrical English poems being his own translations of the Bengali, which he also often set to music. In rhymed and free verse, Sri Chinmoy breathtakingly captures the experiences and explorations of the truth-seeker.