"Your voice is the color of a robin’s breast"

Celebrating Black History Month

In this letter from our archive, Robert Hayden responds to the news that he has been named the recipient of the Academy of American Poets Fellowship. In his letter he writes, “I am sensible of the honor bestowed upon me—one that I never expected to receive—and I am deeply moved by the fact that you and your distinguished Board of Chancellors have found merit in my work.” Modesty aside, by the time he wrote this letter in 1975, Hayden’s career had hit a notable stride with a number of honors he received in 1966. Read more. 

Browse more archival materials, as well as poems, essays, and videos in honor of Black History Month.

“Within the walls of the stage, during years of Wednesday night workshops, poetry has schooled me, hounded me, and sometimes tortured me so badly, I found that it was wisest to head to the woodshed to study and consolidate lessons before venturing back to the page.”

—Read an essay by Peter J. Harris, 2023 Poet Laureate Fellow and co-poet laureate of Altadena, California, on poetry and community. Read a selection of Harris’s poems on Poets.org: 

“Yoga”
“What I Ask For”
“Tithe”

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 poetry and science are tools for making visible what was always there to be seen. Both also create new ways of seeing, feeling, knowing, and 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, and doable.

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

Deadline Approaching: 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 tomorrow, February 15, 2024 (11:59 p.m. ET).

Deadline Approaching: 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 tomorrow, February 15, 2024 (11:59 p.m. ET).