Happy National Poetry Month!

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend April 1, 2016 Celebrating 20 Years of National Poetry Month   Today marks the 20th anniversary of National Poetry Month, the largest literary celebration in the world, bringing poetry to schools, libraries, bookstores, and communities. Start off your celebration by reading a selection of poems featured on this year’s National Poetry Month poster.   “A Nameless One” by Margaret Avison “Relax” by Ellen Bass “Design” by Billy Collins “Stuff I probably did and didn’t” by Stephanie Gray “The Act of Counting” by Nathalie Handal “And I in My Bed Again” by Hilda Morley “Gabriel” by Adrienne Rich “My Father in the Night Commanding No” by Louis Simpson “Center of the World” by Safiya Sinclair

National Poetry Month 2016 Poster   Every year we partner with award-winning designer Chip Kidd to commission a poster in celebration of National Poetry Month. We distribute more than 120,000 posters each year, which are displayed in classrooms, libraries, and bookstores coast to coast. This year’s poster, designed by Debbie Millman, commemorates the 20th anniversary of National Poetry Month. Get your free poster now at Poets.org. Join us for the 2016 Poetry & the Creative Mind gala at Lincoln Center. Join us for the book launch for Poem-a-Day: 365 Poems for Every Occasion. Browse National Poetry Month events and readings near you. New Issue of American Poets   Read book reviews by Stephen Burt; poems by Rita Dove, Aracelis Girmay, Brenda Hillman, Larry Levis, Adrienne Rich, Anne Waldman, and Kevin Young; essays; interviews, and so much more in the new Spring–Summer 2016 issue of American Poets. Find out more about this issue at Poets.org. Poets, Publishers & Literary Leaders on National Poetry Month   In honor of the 20th anniversary of National Poetry Month, we contributed a feature to Poetry magazine, for which we asked poets, leaders of poetry organizations, and publishers to tell us what poets and readers should be thinking about or doing for the next thirty days. Read what Edward Hirsch, Graywolf Press Executive Editor Jeff Shotts, Brenda Shaughnessy, and others had to say. Dear Poet 2016   Watch Jane Hirshfield read her poem “Three Foxes by the Edge of the Field at Twilight” as part of our education project, Dear Poet, which invites students in grades 5-12 to write letters in response to poems shared by the award-winning poets on our Board of Chancellors. Submit your students’ letters and find out more ways to bring poetry into your classroom this April. Poem in Your Pocket Day   For this year’s Poem in Your Pocket Day, on April 21, we’ve teamed up with the League of Canadian Poets to expand the reach of the celebration across North America. Join the celebration by printing, pocketing, and sharing one of the poems from our new, downloadable Poem in Your Pocket Day PDF, now complete with classic and contemporary poems by a number of renowned American and Canadian poets. Stock Up for National Poetry Month   Expand your poetic vocabulary, take note of new favorites, and wallpaper your home in twenty years of National Poetry Month posters with a trip to the Poets Shop. Thank You to Our National Poetry Month Sponsors   We’d like to extend our gratitude to all of the publishers and organizations that helped make National Poetry Month 2016 possible. We will continue thanking our sponsors throughout the month of April.   HarperCollins Publishers; Hollins University: Jackson Center for Creative Writing; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Johns Hopkins University Press; Kenyon Review; Milkweed Editions; Millay Colony for the Arts; Modern Language Association; Mrs. Dalloway’s Bookstore; Naropa University; National Council of Teachers of English; National Endowment for the Arts; New Directions; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; New York State Council on the Arts; Noemi Press; Oak Knoll Books; Penguin Books; Persea Books; Ploughshares; Plumleaf Press; Poetry Foundation; Poets & Writers; and Princeton University Press Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038

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