"There is no mortal art / Can overcome Time’s deep, corroding rust"

“I feel at home in my community in large part because of poetry, a medium whose language names the place where I live and gives voice and credence to the people I live with.”

—Read an essay by Nicholas Gulig, 2023 Poet Laureate Fellow and poet laureate of Wisconsin, on poetry and community. Read a selection of Gulig’s poems on Poets.org: 

“An Image of The Book In Which I Hear You”
“Grove of Meaning”
“Of Genesis”

We are pleased to announce that we have received our largest philanthropic award ever to support the work that civic poets undertake across communities and to help sustain literary ecosystems that are committed to collaboration, inclusivity, and diversity. These two grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, totaling $5.7+ million, will enable the Academy to continue to fund Poet Laureate Fellowships and serve as the fiscal administrator of the Poetry Coalition for the next three years, expanding the reach and impact of both programs across the country.

Join Us at #AWP24

If you’re attending #AWP24 in Kansas City next week, stop by the Academy of American Poets’ booth (#724) to say hello and pick up some free poetry merch. We look forward to seeing you there!

An #AWP24 Reading by Suji Kwock Kim, Sara Daniele Rivera, and Nicole Sealey, Presented by the Academy of American Poets

Saturday, February 10
12:10 p.m. to 1:25 p.m. CT
Ballroom A, Level 2, Kansas City Convention Center

Don’t miss our signature AWP reading, featuring award-winning poets Suji Kwock Kim, author of Notes from the North (Smith/Doorstop, U.K., 2021) and Notes from the Divided Country (Louisiana State University Press, 2003); Sara Daniele Rivera, author of The Blue Mimes (Graywolf Press, 2024), winner of the Academy of American Poets’ First Book Award; and Nicole Sealey, author of The Ferguson Report: An Erasure (Alfred A. Knopf, 2023) and Ordinary Beast (Ecco Press, 2017). 

Join us on Thursday, March 7, at 4:30 p.m. PT / 7:30 p.m. ET (online) for the 2024 Blaney Lecture: “Making the Invisible Visible: Poetry, Science, Perception-Increase, and Change” delivered by Jane Hirshfield, Chancellor Emerita of the Academy of American Poets.

Both poems and science are tools for making visible what was always there to be seen. Both also create new ways of seeing, feeling, knowing, living. Amid the crises, griefs, divisions, and losses of the current era, this talk explores a few examples of the ways in which expansions of saying and knowing are also expansions of what might be possible, thinkable, doable.

This virtual event is free to attend with registration. Closed captioning will be provided. 

On Wednesday, January 24, The Academy of American Poets, now celebrating its ninetieth year, presented its Leadership Awards to William I. Campbell, Rita Dove, W. W. Norton & Company, and Jonathan Plutzik and The Betsy Hotel at Trinity Wall Street’s Parish Hall in New York City. The award ceremony featured readings by Kimiko Hahn, Joseph O. Legaspi, Yesenia Montilla, and honoree Rita Dove.

2024 Ambroggio Prize

The Ambroggio Prize is a $1,000 publication prize given for a book-length poetry manuscript originally written in Spanish and with an English translation. The winning manuscript will be published by University of Arizona Press in 2025. The judge is Norma Elia Cantú. Learn more here and apply by February 15, 2024 (11:59 p.m. ET).

2024 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award

The Harold Morton Landon Translation Award is a $1,000 award recognizing a poetry collection translated from any language into English and published in 2023. The judge is Valzhyna Mort. Learn more here and apply by February 15, 2024 (11:59 p.m. ET).