The Poetry Center presents some 30 public readings, performances and lectures each year, on the San Francisco State University campus and at various off-campus venues, featuring outstanding poets and writers from across the literary spectrum. The Poetry Center reading series, founded in 1954, is one of the longest-running such programs in the country, with roots in the 1950s San Francisco Poetry Renaissance. We also house the American Poetry Archives, a collection approaching 5,000 hours of original audio and video recordings documenting our reading series.