Announcing the 2023 Poet Laureate Fellows

July 25, 2023

The Academy of American Poets Awards $1.1 Million to 23 Poets Laureate Across the United States

Twenty-three poets laureate of states, counties, and cities across the nation will each receive $50,000 to carry out public poetry programs in their respective communities through 2024.

“We celebrate the unique position poets laureate occupy at state and local levels, elevating the possibilities poetry can bring to community conversations and reminding us that our national spirit can be nourished by the power of the written and spoken word,” said Ricardo Maldonado, President and Executive Director of the Academy.

more at poets.org

Poems from the Poet Laureate Fellows

“We Never Stop Talking About Our Mothers” by Diannely Antigua (Portsmouth, NH)
“Dear David,” by Lisa Bickmore (Utah)
“Louis Armstrong Plays for His Wife in Giza, 1961” by Jennifer Bartell Boykin (Columbia, SC)
“Neh Tsoi” by Joseph Bruchac (Saratoga Springs, NY)
“Winter of Tumult and Artifact” by Lauren Camp (New Mexico)
“Wars of Attrition” by Laura Da’ (Redmond, WA)
“You Must Lift Your’s Languid Body” by Oliver de la Paz (Worcester, MA)
“Heretic” by Farnaz Fatemi (Santa Cruz County, CA)
“Grove of Meaning” by Nicholas Gulig (Fort Atkinson, WI)
“Tithe” by Peter J. Harris (Altadena, CA)
“Art Movie” by Taylor Johnson (Takoma Park, MD)
“Listening to Nina Simone Sing ‘Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues.’” by Yalie Saweda Kamara (Cincinnati, OH)

Watch this recent PBS interview with the Academy of American Poets new Executive Director Ricardo Maldonado in which he speaks to the Academy’s “unique position to reflect the diversity of the poetry field and the readers of poetry across America and across the world.” Read the transcript of the interview here.

The Academy of American Poets Announces the 2023 Poetry Fund Grant Recipients

In alliance with Amazon Literary Partnership, the Academy of American Poets is pleased to announce the 2023 recipients of the Poetry Fund grants, which are provided annually to poetry organizations and presses that are selected from among a pool of applicants.

more at poets.org

“You know who I am yes you’re the man
Who journeyed to the center of Earth
In your mind he smiled on my arm said do
You know that the Earth also journeyed”

From John Lee Clark’s poem “At the Holiday Gas Station”

Clark, this month’s Poem-a-Day Guest Editor, is the author of the essay collection Where I Stand: On the Signing Community and My DeafBlind Experience (Handtype Press, 2014) and the poetry collection How to Communicate (W. W. Norton, 2022). He is a Braille instructor and Protactile trainer living in Hopkins, Minnesota. Read and listen to a Q&A with Clark about his Poem-a-Day curatorial approach.

more at poets.org

#PoetryNearYou Pick of the Week
The Dignity of our Breathing: a Disability Pride Month Poetry Reading at the Whitney Museum

This Disability Pride Month, join the Whitney Museum for a poetry reading facilitated by Joselia Rebekah Hughes featuring poets Kay Ulanday Barrett, Dan Schapiro, and Jackie Torres, in conjunction with the thirty-third anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Saturday, July 29, at 7 p.m. ET at The Susan and John Hess Family Theater and Gallery at the Whitney Museum, 99 Gansevoort St., New York, NY, and online via Zoom.

register for free here

2024 First Book Award

Submissions for the 2024 Academy of American Poets First Book Award, judged by Victoria Chang, will be accepted online until September 1, 2023. The winner of the First Book Award will receive $5,000, publication by Graywolf Press, a six-week residency at the Civitella Ranieri Center in Umbria, Italy, and distribution of their winning book to thousands of Academy members.

more at poets.org

The city of Nashville’s Metro Arts is seeking a full-time public art manager.
The National Book Foundation in New York, NY, is seeking a full-time consulting archivist.
The Jan Michalski Foundation is accepting applications for its 2024 residencies. Apply by September 14, 2023. Learn more here.

Revisit last week’s Poem-a-Day selections with us on Poets.org:

July 16: “To a Bride” by Mary Toles Peet
July 17: “Ship/Plum” by Maija Haavisto
July 18: “Parasitoid” by Frank Gallimore
July 19: “The Caseworker Speaks of a Good Fit” by DJ Savarese
July 20: “The Genie Speaks” by Nathan Spoon
July 21: “Wail” by Johnson Cheu
July 22: “On the Death of Sir Erasmus Philips” by Anna Williams

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Announcing the 2023 Poet Laureate Fellows

Older messages

"Otters" by Raymond Luczak

"My Friend, Her Grandson" by Pia Täavila-Borsheim

"The Author’s Picture" by Thomas Blacklock

"On the Death of Sir Erasmus Philips" by Anna Williams

"Wail" by Johnson Cheu

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