The Academy of American Poets is a national organization supported by its members. It works to support poets and the art of poetry. The nonprofit group was created in New York in 1934. It encourages people to read poetry through activities like National Poetry Month, its website Poets.org, the syndicated series Poem-a-Day, the magazine American Poets, readings and events, and resources for teachers in grades K–12. The Academy also supports nine major poetry awards. The first of these was a fellowship started in 1946 to help a poet and honor "distinguished achievement." It also gives more than 200 prizes to student poets.
In 1984, Robert Penn Warren wrote, "To have great poets, there must be great audiences, Whitman said, to the more or less unheeding ears of American educators. Ambitiously, hopefully, the Academy has undertaken to remedy this plight." In 1998, Dinitia Smith described the Academy of American Poets as "a venerable body at the symbolic center of the American poetry establishment." In 2013, Carolyn Forché described the Academy of American Poets as "the most important organization in our country helping to keep poetry alive and in our culture."
History
The Academy of American Poets was started in 1934 in New York City by Marie Bullock, who was 23 years old at the time. Its goal is to help American poets at all stages of their careers and to encourage people to enjoy modern poetry. In 1936, the organization was officially registered as a nonprofit group. Marie Bullock led the Academy for 50 years, managing it from her apartment for 30 of those years. In 1982, she received a Mayor's Award of Honor for Arts and Culture. She also earned the Gold Medal from the National Institute of Social Sciences and the Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts from the National Institute of Arts and Letters.
Since its beginning, the Academy has been guided by an honorary Board of Chancellors, which includes well-known poets who advise the organization and judge its major poetry prizes. Past Chancellors include W. H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Lucille Clifton, Robert Creeley, Marianne Moore, Mark Strand, and May Swenson. Both women and men were part of the Academy’s founding group, such as Florence Hamilton.
As of 2018, the Academy’s fifteen Chancellors included Elizabeth Alexander, Ellen Bass, Marilyn Chin, Kwame Dawes, Forrest Gander, Linda Gregerson, Terrance Hayes, Brenda Hillman, Marie Howe, Khaled Mattawa, Marilyn Nelson, Alicia Ostriker, Claudia Rankine, Alberto Ríos, and David St. John.
As of 2020, Michael Jacobs was the chairperson of the Academy’s Board.
The Academy runs several programs, including National Poetry Month; Poets.org, a website with poems, essays, and over 800 recordings and videos of poets from the 1960s, along with free teaching materials for K–12 students; the Poem-a-Day series; and the magazine American Poets. The organization also gives nine major poetry prizes and 200 college awards at schools across the United States.
In 1998, Fred Viebahn, the husband of poet Rita Dove, brought attention to the lack of diversity on the Academy’s Board of Chancellors. At that time, no poet of color had been chosen as a Chancellor, and very few women had held the position. In response, two female Chancellors, Maxine Kumin and Carolyn Kizer, resigned in protest. The Academy then made changes and added new Chancellors, including African-American poets Lucille Clifton and Yusef Komunyakaa.
Elizabeth Kray became the first executive director of the Academy in 1963 and worked there until 1981. William Wadsworth was the executive director from 1989 to 2001.
In January 2020, the Academy received a $4.5 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, in addition to a $2.2 million grant from 2019. These funds will support the poet laureate program.
In 2023, the Academy appointed its first Latino executive director and president, Ricardo Alberto Maldonado.
Awards given by the Academy of American Poets
Awards are listed in the order they were created.
One Academy Fellowship is given each year for "distinguished poetic achievement." Fellows receive a payment of $25,000. The Fellowship program began in 1946 and was the first award in the organization's current collection. The Academy's website, Poets.org, calls it "the first of its kind in the United States."
Previously called the Lamont Poetry Selection, the Laughlin Award is given to recognize a poet's second published book. It is the only major award that honors a poet's second book.
The award was first created in 1954 through a gift from Thomas W. Lamont's wife. She wanted the money to "discover and encourage new poetic talent." In 1959, Harvey Shapiro called it "roughly, a Pulitzer for bardlings." At first, the Lamont Poetry Selection was given for a poet's first published book. The Academy bought copies of the book to send to its members. In 1975, the award was changed to honor a poet's second book. Peter Davison, an editor, said this change was needed because publishing a second book had become harder than publishing the first.
In 1995, the award was funded by the Drue Heinz Trust and renamed to honor James Laughlin, who started the publishing house New Directions in 1936. Today, winners receive $5,000, a weeklong residency at The Betsy Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida, and the Academy buys 1,000 copies of the winning book to send to its members. This ensures the book becomes a bestseller in the poetry market.
Edward Field described the importance of the Award to his career as follows:
Many Award recipients have later won major honors for mature poets. Donald Hall became the Poet Laureate of the United States in 2004. Donald Justice, Lisel Mueller, Philip Schultz, and Tracy K. Smith each won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
The Academy started giving $100 prizes to student poets at ten American universities and colleges in 1955. The program now includes more than 200 schools. Most prizes are funded forever, though some are supported by schools or private donors. To join the program, a school must contribute $2,500. Each school sets its own rules for selecting winners, as long as the winners are registered students and the school does not limit the themes or styles of the entries.
The Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize is given each year for the best poetry book written by a living U.S. citizen and published in the previous year in the United States. The Prize was created in 1975 by the New Hope Foundation of Pennsylvania, a group started by Lenore Marshall and her husband, James Marshall, to "support the arts and the cause of world peace." Lenore Marshall, a poet, novelist, editor, and peace activist, died in 1971.
The Prize was first managed by Saturday Review magazine. After Saturday Review closed, The Nation magazine took over. In 1995, the Academy of American Poets began managing the Prize. It has a permanent fund, and the prize is currently worth $25,000.
The Academy of American Poets announces three judges for each year's competition in advance. Some people have criticized the Academy's process for avoiding conflicts of interest, as judges often know poets whose books are nominated.
Named after poet Walt Whitman, the award is based on a competition for book-length poetry manuscripts by American poets who have not yet published a book. It is described as "a transformative honor that includes publication and distribution of the book through the Academy, $5,000 in cash, and a residency at the Civitella Ranieri Foundation." The Library of Congress and The New York Times both note this award as a distinction for poets.
The award was established in 1975. In a 1985 New York Times article, novelist John Barth noted that 1,475 manuscripts had been entered into one of the Whitman Award competitions, which was more than the number of subscribers to some poetry journals. From 1992 to 2014, Louisiana State University Press published each volume as part of its "Walt Whitman Award Series." Starting in 2015, Graywolf Press published the winning manuscript. The Academy buys and distributes copies to its members, along with copies for the James Laughlin Award.
This $1,000 award recognizes a poetry collection translated from any language into English and published in the previous year. It was established in 1976 and is given annually. A noted translator chooses the winning book.
Named for Wallace Stevens, the award was created in 1994 by Dorothea Tanning to "recognize outstanding and proven mastery in the art of poetry." Nominations are not accepted. The winner, who must be an American citizen, is chosen by the Academy of American Poets Board of Chancellors and receives $100,000.
Established in 1995, the award aims to recognize American translators for "outstanding translations into English of modern Italian poetry" published through non-self-publication means. The prize alternates annually between a $10,000 book prize and a fellowship at the American Academy in Rome with $20,000 for advancing a "significant work-in-progress," such as through travel or study. The award is managed by The New York Community Trust and funded by a bequest from Sonia Raiziss Giop.
Established in 2013, the Aliki Perroti and Seth Frank Most Promising Young Poet Award recognizes a student poet who is twenty-three years old or younger, with an annual cash prize of $1,000.
Established in 2017, the Ambroggio Prize is the only annual award in the United States that honors American poets whose first language is Spanish. It is a $1,000 publication prize given for a book-length poetry manuscript originally written in Spanish and with an English translation. Luis Alberto Ambroggio sponsored the prize to "celebrate poets in the United States writing in Spanish as an important part of our rich American poetic tradition."
In 2019, the Academy of American Poets launched the Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship, which provides poets laureate from states, municipalities, and tribal nations with $50,000 to support the creation of new work and enable them to undertake civic projects that enrich their communities.
Past awards include the Copernicus Award (from 1974 to 1977), the Edgar Award (from 1974 to 1977), and the Peter I. B. Lavan Younger Poets Award (from 1983 to 1994).