National Translation Month, Announcing the 2021 Poems in Translation Contest Winners, and more

Congratulations to the winners of the 2021 American Poets Prizes, which are among the most valuable and venerable poetry prizes in the United States. Among this year’s recipients are Toi Derricotte, who has received the Wallace Stevens Award, and Camille T. Dungy, who has received the Academy of American Poets Fellowship. Read more about all the winners here. 

Congratulations to Willie Perdomo, who has been appointed the New York State Poet. Perdomo is preceeded by Chancellor Emerita Alicia Ostriker, who has served since 2018. The author of several books, including The Crazy Bunch (Penguin Books, 2019), Perdomo is a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, a two-time New York Foundation for the Arts Poetry Fellow, the recipient of the New York City Book Award, among other honors. 

Join us Monday, September 27, at 7 p.m. EDT for World in Verse: a multilingual reading and celebration of the Words Without Borders 2021 Poems in Translation Contest winners, in partnership with the Academy of American Poets. Closed captioning and an accessibility packet will be provided. Register for this free event here. 

The October 1 deadline is approaching for the 2022 Academy of American Poets First Book Award, the nation’s most generous first-book prize for poetry, judged by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Tyehimba Jess. The winner will receive $5,000 and their manuscript will be published by Graywolf Press in 2023. Submissions will be accepted online until October 1, 2021, and the recipient will be announced in April 2022 during National Poetry Month.

Listen to Rosa Alcalá, author of MyOTHER TONGUE (Futurepoem, 2017), discuss her curatorial approach and her own creative work.