Last November, we went down to the County Clerk’s Office at 60 Centre Street, filled out Doing-Business-As forms and paid 7 dollars. Each clerk who stamped or put his mark on the forms said warily ‘What kind of a business is Giorno Poetry Systems?’ As we were leaving, a little old man with glasses shook our hand and said ‘Good luck on the new enterprise!’ Our lawyers are incorporating it.

(John Giorno, 1970)

Giorno Poetry Systems is a non-profit organization that supports artists, poets, and musicians, and centers their perspectives.

Artists, poets, and musicians curate our events, they select tracks for our record label, they jury our grants, and their voices are heard on all of our phone lines

GPS was founded in 1965 and became a 501(c)3 non-profit organization in 1974. It was created by the artist, poet, and activist John Giorno (1936–2019), who pushed poetry off the printed page and into visual, musical, political, and social realms. GPS also supports his work and maintains his extensive archive of the downtown New York poetry, art, performance, and music communities. 

222 Bowery
New York, NY 10012
USA

Open by appointment
Open for events
Open for 222 Tuesdays (4–7pm}

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Eli Coplan
Programming and 
Production Manager
eli@giornopoetrysystems.org

Anthony Huberman
Executive Artistic Director
anthony@giornopoetrysystems.org

Bonnie Whitehouse
Archivist and Registrar
bonnie@giornopoetrysystems.org

General information
info@giornopoetrysystems.org

Bookkeeping
accounting@ giornopoetrysystems.org

Graphic design
David Reinfurt

Photography
Jason Fulford

Board of Trustees
Ugo Rondinone, President
Laura Hoptman, Vice-President
Mattias Herold, Treasurer
Due to the age and character of the building, the space is not optimized for ADA accessibility and is located up a single flight of 20 stairs with handrails. If you have questions about access, please contact us in advance of the event, and we will make every effort to accommodate you.

Giorno Poetry Systems is situated in Lenapehoking, on the unceded territories of the Lenape peoples. We acknowledge that our existence, operating on the island of Manahatta, is a consequence of violent histories of settler colonialism bound up with unchecked exclusions, genocide, and erasures of many Indigenous people, ongoing to this day.