About Us
In an artificial world, create genuine empathy
Our poets provide an artistic antidote through empathic, embodied interactions that allow guests to tap into language, beauty, and emotions: the most precious elements of our shared humanity. Our booking team seamlessly handles the details and logistics of your creative activation from the day you first enquire until the post-event recap is complete.
What’s in a name?
Ars Poetica is Latin for “The Art of Poetry.” Yes, it’s a little academic, but it’s what inspires us. To quote from the Horace’s two thousand year old treatise on the value of poetry to human society;
Poets feAtured in
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The Heart of Ars Poetica
At Ars Poetica, we believe that words have the power to move people, to connect them in ways they never thought possible. Our purpose is to create immersive experiences that inspire and awaken the senses, to bring people together in a world that can often feel disconnected. We strive to create spaces where the spoken word, music, and art converge, allowing guests to feel fully alive and present in the moment. Our events are a celebration of the beauty and power of language, and we believe that through them, we can make the world a more connected and meaningful place.
What We Hold Dear
Empathic Intelligence
The way we use words and art is both intellectually stimulating and emotionally satisfying for every event guest, and for the clients we interface with.
Embodied Interactions
While we are always excited to incorporate new technologies and methodologies into our work, our talent at its core is in the heart, body, and soul. Interacting with us make you feel more beautifully human.
Excellent Impact
Everything we do in some way has a positive effect on our communities, society, and earth. You receive a poem? We plant a tree. You hire a poet for your event? That poet gets to create art in a safe and sustainable environment and fund their creative projects. You buy an Ars Poetica product? We are able to create impactful systems for creatives from historically marginalized groups.
Transformative Poetry
From Typewriter Haiku at a sushi restaurant to emceeing 5,000 person events
If you are an event producer, you know: what's most important is how each guest feels in the world that your create for them. That's how Ars Poetica got our start: filling a need for one-of-a-kind entertainment opportunities for clients that deserve to be remembered forever.
In November 2012, a Washington, DC restaurateer tapped Ars Poetica founder Lisa Ann (LAMARKS) Markuson to create an immersive experience for the opening of his new sushi restaurant. Writing custom haiku on the spot on her vintage typewriter, Lisa Ann cracked the code on a way to help strangers bond over what we call "empathic intelligence."
Long before the age of artificial intelligence, we were already living in a time where terms like "engagement" and "experiential entertainment" were already rising in importance and recognition. Fast forward over ten years, and we're proud to say we've become the go-to creative curators for conscientious event planners and clients around the world.
Typewriter haiku was how we got our start, and still remains a powerful activation for events of all kinds. But we're pushing the boundaries of creative entertainment to new heights with partners like Google, Twitter (pre-Elon), the Chilean Embassy, the City of Sacramento, FENDI, the Belgian-American Chamber of Commerce, Tiffany, the NY Public Library and NY History Museum, Van Cleef Arpel, and perhaps soon, your event too.
From Emotional to Ecological
We are constantly exploring ways to make sure that our commercial growth and economic success is directly proportional to our ability to heal on a personal and planetary level. From planting a tree for each poem we write at corporate events, to working with non-profit and educational groups on a sliding scale, to regularly reassessing all our business processes to reduce their footprint and waste, we know that words mean nothing if we can't enjoy them in a resilient and repaired world.
OH CAPTAIN, OUR CAPTAIN
Meet LAMarks
With a degree in International Studies from University of San Francisco, and one semester of graduate studies in International Communications at American University, Lisa Ann was on track to launch a career in cultural diplomacy. That is, until the day that her boss (who looked exactly like Draco Malfoy, by the way) sat her down in his office and said, deadpan,
“You remind me of my sister, and I don’t like that. You need to tone down your style and learn to fit in more if you’re going to succeed in this organization.”
That was the end of her government career.
Now, with 10 years of experience as a freelancer, indie event producer, moonlight journalist, curator, social media executive, yoga teacher, bicycle tour guide, and 7 years as a professional typewriter haikuist, she’s made a radical shift to a more feminist, inclusive, and sustainable business model to celebrate the multitalented nature of her artists. Her dream? To fulfill the potential that poetry has to enrich every type of experience, on and off the page.
Lisa Ann takes her biggest pleasure in life from eating sushi and writing and performing custom poetry around the world, and will be honored to write your poems in Spanish, English, or Swedish. If you like, she will bring HER WIZARD FIANCÉ along too - of course, he is a magic wordsmith as well.
MILLION POEMS + MILLION TREES BY 2030
JOIN ARS POETICA AS WE BECOME MORE THAN JUST A ZERO WASTE COMPANY: CREATE A POSITIVE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
WANT TO MAKE AN IMMEDIATE IMPACT?
While booking poets for an event is the most direct way to make the largest environmental impact with us, for a donation of $5 or more, you can plant a tree and get a poem of your own emailed right to you or someone you love. We pay our poets for the time and talent that goes into each poem, in addition to the cost of planting each tree. Your contribution is going directly to supporting our artists and reforestation efforts.
The AP Team
We are proud to represent almost eighty international, multicultural creatives who are the fuel for the magic we create all around the world. We can’t wait to work with you.
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NYC + DC
SF + LA
Chicago + Louisville
Boston + Miami
Portland + Seattle
Vancouver, BC + Montreal, QC
London, UK
Paris, FR
Berlin, DE
Johannesburg, South Africa
and travel internationally, of course.
A place to be, and become
You are looking for avenues to sustain your life through your creativity, and it is our greatest honor to get you there. Join our community, develop your skills, get on our roster, get booked for events, then keep leveling up and growing with us on your individual creative journey. Sign up to receive our orientation kit to find out if our community is right for you.
Fill your event with feeling
You want to wow your guests in the moment and leave them with memories to last longer than the latest fad. Let's work together to get you the creative talent, interactive artists, and typewriter wordsmiths that will add that special, unforgettable element to your incredible event.
Did you know…
Celebrities love poetry
We've written poems for Queen Latifah, Rosario Dawson, Rufus Wainwright, Emmy Rossum, Drew Barrymore, Hillary Clinton, Bill Murray and Meryl Streep, among others! One of our dreams is to write poems at a party hosted by Oprah and Gayle. Another is to write poems on live national TV: late-night, morning show, any time. But we think Colbert would really get a kick out of it.
FAQs
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Poet, polyglot, and multi-talented people-connector Lisa Ann (LAMARKS) Markuson is the owner and founder of Ars Poetica.
With a degree in International Studies from the University of San Francisco and graduate studies in International Communications at American University, Lisa Ann’s first career was in cultural diplomacy. She left her role as the Director of Meridian International’ Center’s International Children’s Festival in Washington, DC to move to New York City to become a typewriter poet some time in the early twenty-teens.
Now, she has 10 years of experience as a freelancer, indie event producer, journalist, curator, social media executive, yoga teacher, copywriter, brand consultant, certified tour guide, and of course, poet. Her woman-owned, inclusive and sustainable business model now celebrates the multitalented nature of her artists through her creative agency, Ars Poetica. Through her work, Lisa Ann has produced, performed at, and curated events for The Smithsonian, The Chilean Embassy, Macy’s, Google, Twitter, Facebook, Bowery Poetry Club, Bloomberg, Women’s Wear Daily, The New School, The City of Sacramento, USC’s Pacific-Asia Museum, and countless more.
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We specialize in short-form poetry, from bite-sized haiku or couplets to slightly longer limericks and sonnets. We write various lengths of free-verse, too.
A haiku takes as little as 60-120 seconds.
Limerick takes about 3-5 minutes to write.
Sonnets can be written in 5-7 minutes.
Myths, fairy tales, and stories need 7+ minutes to create.
For tarot and astrological readings, alot at least 7 minutes.
If you’d like Tarot Poems (tarot or astro reading with a poem at the end) take 10 minutes.
Adding calligraphy or illustration to poems adds another 2-3 minutes to each poem.
The typewriter is the most popular way to write these poems. There is something inexplicably entrancing and delightful about the timeless sound of a typewriter clacking happily away. However we have been thrilled to also write with quill and ink on parchment and scrolls, to do calligraphy poems, to have poems projected on walls, burned with lasers onto wood and other organic materials, to write poems onto wine labels, written on tiny slips of paper and hidden in lockets or fortune cookies, and so on and so forth.
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We'd love to hear from you and welcome you into our community! Of course we are active and engaged on Instagram and TikTok, and we have a public discord channel where you can stay up-to-date and learn from other creatives like you.
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We can curate spoken word artists to fit your theme, or write original performance poems to share with your group. We can also gather input from the attendees during an event and incorporate their ideas into a longer-form poem that encapsulates the theme of your event, performed live at a chosen moment.
Ars Poetica poets are also available to teach writing or performance workshops, and then host a guided open mic for your community to share their own words with the support of a professional artist.
Beyond this, the options are endless - we have artists who specialize in wellness and healing, astrology, tarot, dance, music, illustration, portraiture, and much more. If you have an idea for creative entertainment at your event - drop us a note and we can probably make it happen.
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We have been writing custom poetry at events since 2012 (longer than any of the other typewriter companies) and hope to continue doing so until at least 3012. Our dream is that Ars Poetica can be an organization and community that lasts for generations and evolves and improves over many, many years.