If this event was annocunced in another thread, I've missed it. I was looking at today's http://www.nytimes.com, New York Times on-line and saw an article, "The Ballad of the Ballad, Poetry's Bearer of Bad News" by Billy Collins.
"... ...
the People's Poetry Gathering, a biennial three-day series of readings and talks sponsored by Poets House, the 40,000-volume poetry library on Spring Street in SoHo, and City Lore, a nonprofit group that documents urban folk life [takes place this weekend]. The focus will be on narrative poetry, particularly the ballad and its big brother, the epic.

"The events are many and varied, ranging from Donald Hall speaking on Thomas Hardy to a talk on the cross-dressing ballad (women dressing as men to have adventures), from a tribute to Alan Lomax to public readings of 'Gilgamesh' and 'Beowulf' in their entirety and an all-day reading of 'The Odyssey' by the translator Robert Fagles and others aboard the Peking, a tall ship at the South Street Seaport. There will also be rapping and slamming (take your helmet), as well as cowboy lyrics, calypso and klezmer music (separately) and the story-poems of countries including Russia, Finland, Albania and Kazakhstan."

the article then continues with a "crash course on the ballad".

I hope someone else will add contact details for the People's Poetry Gathering.