Artistic Directors and coordinators of the project have included Joel Oppenheimer, Anne Waldman, Bernadette Mayer, Bob Holman.
Ron Padgett, Eileen Myles, Patricia Spears Jones, Jessica Hagedorn, Ed Friedman – whose term from 1986 to 2003 was the longest[2] – Anselm Berrigan, Stacy Szymaszek, Simone White, Kyle Dacuyan, and the incumbent director Nicole Wallace.
[3] The archive contains around 40,000 hours of audio and visual recordings, as well as ephemera including posters, correspondence, financial information, and other material.
[5] Prior to the formal establishment of the Poetry Project, St Mark's Church was already a venue for cultural events.
[7] In May 1966, the Reverend Michael Allen, the priest of St Mark's, decided to accept a federal grant of almost $200,000 from the Office of Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Development.
[8] The grant was administered jointly by Michael Allen and Harry Silverstein at the New School, and was technically to be used for 'creative arts for alienated youth' and the socialisation of juvenile delinquents.
[21] From 1977 until 1978, the New York City public-access television show Public Access Poetry (PAP)[22] showed readings at the project featuring poets such as Ted Berrigan, Ron Padgett, Eileen Myles, John Yau, Brad Gooch, Alice Notley, Jim Brodey, and more.
[citation needed] In 2011, after launching a successful Kickstarter campaign, The Poetry Project was able to restore, preserve and digitize all of the remaining film.