Poetry has been woven into the fabric of Winter Institute since the pandemic. When indie booksellers were forced to gather virtually, in 2021 and 2022, resulting in ABA’s "Snow Days" retreat, the interludes between sessions featured pre-recorded videos of poets reading from their latest works. In 2023, when Winter Institute returned in person in Seattle, the event featured a poetry theatre with a 12-hour loop of pre-recorded video readings by 18 poets while, at the 2025 iteration in Denver, booksellers were treated to a pre-recorded video of U.S. poet laureate Ada Limón reading the title poem in her latest collection, Startlement.

This year, in Pittsburgh, poetry will be an even more integral part of Winter Institute. Not only will the current U.S. poet laureate, Arthur Sze, be on hand to sign ARCs of his latest collection, Transient Worlds: On Translating Poetry (Copper Canyon, Apr.), at the Wednesday evening reception, but preceding the reception, there will be an hour-long poetry salon. The “Indie Verse Salon” will feature four poets reading from their work: Cameron Barnett (Murmur, August House), Jan Beatty (Dragstripping, Univ. of Pittsburgh Press), Samantha Corfman (Luxury, Blue Lace, University of Pittsburgh Press), and Jake Skeets (Horses: Poems, Milkweed Editions, Mar.).

WI2026 will close with a poetic keynote, a conversation between poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil (Night Owl, Ecco) and Isaac Fitzgerald (American Rambler, Knopf, May).

“ABA has many poets and poetry-lovers on staff,” director of education Emily Nason told PW. “We've been trying to weave in some poetic aspects to the institutes for a while. WI2026 is all about celebration and joy—the joy of bookselling, writing, and reading. What genre is more celebratory than poetry?"

Nason added that a conversation last year with the University of Pittsburgh Press staff about the city’s vibrant poetry scene led to the conceptualization of the WI2026 poetry salon. “We're thrilled to celebrate the city's rich literary landscape with these writers," she said.

A city of poets

The Steel City does indeed teem with poets and poetry lovers, according to local literati, including local poet Michael Wurster.

A towering figure in Pittsbugh’s literary circles, Wurster cofounded the Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange in 1974 to promote poetry through public readings, workshops, and and other outreach. Wurster, who still is the driving force behind PPE, told PW how the launch of the International Poetry Forum in 1966 paved the way for a widespread appreciation of poetry throughout the region.

“Poets came from all over the world to Pittsburgh, hosted by the International Poetry Forum,” he said. “They made it possible for poetry to be presented as normal, and not be considered as some weird thing.”

The emergence of the Hemingway's Summer Poetry Series, founded by two University of Pittsburgh English faculty members the same year that Wurster founded the Poetry Exchange, helped create a “really great scene in the early to mid-70s,” Wurster said, which continues today.

Hemingway’s moved two years ago from Hemingway's Café in Oakland to a barn at Hop Farm Brewing Co. in Lawrenceville. “The place is always packed during readings,” which are held every week in summer, Wurster said. “They bring in poets from all over the country and fill this big space—there must be 150 people at those readings.”

Camille Rankine, who moved to Pittsburgh from New York City in 2022 to teach in the English department at Carnegie Mellon University agrees.

“Moving to Pittsburgh, one of the things that I found is that this small city really punches above its weight,” Rankine said. “The culture available here, the arts—there's a lot going on.” Poetry readings range from “small events, like little salons, in people’s living rooms, up to the International Poetry Forum,” she said, noting that IPF events, which are held at the Carnegie Library, draw huge crowds and regularly sell out. “It's a smaller scene than New York City,” Rankine added, “but there's a lot of interest and passion.”

And of course there are many local bookstores that host poetry readings. Rankine has read at White Whale Bookstore and also attended poetry readings there. Last spring, she read her poetry at City of Asylum’s annual Jazz Poetry Month festival, during which musicians collaborate with poets to create multidisciplinary performances.

But it’s the poetry in more unconventional spaces that most appeals to Rankine. One of her favorite poetry events is the Bonfire Reading Series, held in a shared garden in the East Liberty neighborhood, “or in someone’s living room,” she said. “They have snacks, families come, kids are there, there's pets running around, and people share poetry and music. It’s a beautiful event.”

Since moving to Pittsburgh, Rankine said, she’s “been doing things I’ve haven’t done before—like, I was invited to read at a reading series this summer at a barn in Lawrenceville. I have never done something like that, so that's going to be fun to see what it’s like.”