“We Real Cool”
Gwendolyn Brooks

“Calculations”
Brenda Cárdenas

“The Letters Learn to Breathe Twice”
Brenda Hillman

“Theme for English B”
Langston Hughes

“An Instructor’s Dream”
Bill Knott

“A New Year’s Greeting to a College Senior”
George Marion McClellan

“On Doubt and Bad Reviews”
Naomi Shihab Nye

“The Hand”
Mary Ruefle

“The Lonely Street”
William Carlos Williams

from the archive

(Left to right): Mark Strand, William Stafford, and David Wagoner at a West Coast reading for the fiftieth anniversary of the Academy of American Poets in 1984.

on audre lorde

Audre felt accountable to her entire generation, especially those women who were not able to write their own life stories.

Read an excerpt from Survival is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, published this week by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.  

poems by lorde

Listen to poems by Lorde:


“A Song for Many Movements”
“The Old Days (audio only)”
“Black Mother Woman (audio only)”
“For Assata (audio only)”

pick of the week

Join our 2024 cohort of Poet Laureate Fellows for a National Book Festival reading presented by the Library of Congress. These individuals serve as poets laureate of states, counties, and cities across the nation and will lead public poetry programs in their respective communities through 2025. 

Saturday, August 24, 3:30 pm–5:00 p.m. ET at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center (L Street Bridge, Level 2).

first book award

2025 Academy of American Poets First Book Award: Winner receives $5,000, publication by Graywolf Press, and a six-week residency at the Civitella Ranieri Center. Former Chancellor Alberto Ríos will judge. Apply here by September 1.