"If a black man couldn’t be happy here, where could he?"

“Please, please in all publicity call me Ai and nothing else. That’s the only name I want on the book and should be the only name you use. Hardly anyone knows who P. Ogawa is. Thanks.”

Ai was born Florence Anthony, but as a young woman she began to refer to herself as Ai, which translates to “love” in Japanese. After she learned the story behind her conception and found out about her Japanese ancestry, she legally changed her surname to that of her biological father, Ogawa, and changed her middle name to Ai. However, there are still more variations in the names she gave herself; in the letter, she mentions “P. Ogawa,” referring to the name Pelorhanke Ai Ogawa, which she also occasionally went by. Despite these different names, she was mostly known by, and is still referred to simply as Ai.

In celebration of the Academy’s ninetieth anniversary, we share this 1978 letter from the poet, written after hearing that she had been selected as the winner of the Lamont Poetry Selection.

Read more about this archival document and browse more materials, as well as poems, essays, and videos in honor of Black History Month.

“I began my poetic journey as a young Black girl, penning verses in a journal. In light of this memory, my appointment as Greenville’s first poet laureate feels both monumental and historical.”

—Read an essay by Glenis Redmond, 2023 Poet Laureate Fellow and poet laureate of Greenville, South Carolina, on poetry and community. Read a selection of Redmond’s poems on Poets.org: 

“Make No Apologies For Yourself”
“Praise Dave”
“Jarring”

Join us on Tuesday, March 19, at 4:30 p.m. PDT / 7:30 p.m. EDT (online) for the 2024 Blaney Lecture: “Making the Invisible Visible” 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. 

2024 Poetry Fund Applications Open

In alliance with the Amazon Literary Partnership, the Academy of American Poets invites poetry organizations and presses to submit applications for grants from the Poetry Fund, which will be awarded in 2024. Grant applications are being accepted now through April 15. Learn more and apply.

2024 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize & 2024 James Laughlin Award  

We are now accepting submissions from publishers for the 2024 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, which recognizes the most outstanding book of poetry published in 2023, and the 2024 James Laughlin Award, given to a second book of poetry forthcoming in 2025. Learn more here and apply by May 15, 2024 (11:59 p.m. ET). 

2024 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowships

The Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowships are $50,000 awards given to honor poets of literary merit appointed to serve in civic positions and to enable them to undertake meaningful, impactful, and innovative projects that engage their fellow residents, including youth, with poetry, helping to address issues important to their communities. We are accepting applications for the 2024 fellowships until April 8, 2024, at 11:59 p.m. ET.