Tending the Field: A National Poetry Month Message

Happy National Poetry Month! We're proud to support our grantee-partner, the Academy of American Poets, which started this annual tradition honoring poetry’s role in culture in 1996. That’s three decades worth of Aprils celebrating slam poetry in coffee shops, intimate readings in the back of independent bookstores, students writing their first poem in classrooms, and reluctant readers who discover that one poem that resonates with their unique experience. 

While the Poetry Foundation amplifies poetry and celebrates poets all year long, April provides a special opportunity to consider all of the ways poetry holds an essential place in our lives. As poet Muriel Rukeyser wrote in The Life of Poetry, "If there were no poetry on any day in the world, poetry would be invented that day. For there would be an intolerable hunger." 

One of the more meaningful ways we fulfill our mission is by elevating the work of poetry organizations across the United States through grantmaking. The impact is most powerful in individual communities across the country, where our grantee-partners introduce young people to poetry in schools and after-school programs, support writers of all ages through workshops and fellowships, and connect audiences to poetry through readings, performances, and publications. Investing in organizations that open doors for poets and broaden access to the literary arts multiplies poetry’s reach far beyond what we can achieve on our own.

We’re especially proud of the work being done right in our backyard in Chicago, where three of our Sustainable Futures grantee-partners, Chicago Poetry Center, Guild Literary Complex, and Young Chicago Authors, are based. 

National Poetry Month: What We’re Offering

Spring, and particularly April, is a time of renewal, growth, and celebration. Here in Chicago, we swap our winter parkas and boots for light jackets and sandals. Streets and parks bloom with flowers, and art makes its way outside in the form of outdoor performances and street festivals. It’s a time countless poets have lauded (just explore our Spring Poems collection for a sampling), and it always fills me with hope and excitement for what’s in store during National Poetry Month and beyond. 

I’m looking forward to another April issue of all first-time contributors to Poetry. In addition to some remarkable poems by new contributors, the issue includes a thorough introduction to the work of the late Linda Gregg, and an essay by David Woo on the AIDS crisis in 1990's San Francisco.

Also this spring, the Poetry Foundation launched a new video series, “Where I Write,” spending the first episode with Erika L. Sánchez in her Chicago attic, which she calls her “sanctuary.” Sánchez discusses her creative process and how her experience as a woman and child of immigrants shapes her writing. Videos in the series will debut on our website and social media channels, so stay tuned for more opportunities to connect with writers in their unique writing spaces. 

Join us for free events with two of our recent Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize recipients that are not to be missed. On April 2, CAConrad will join the Poetry Foundation for the unveiling of Bold Type, followed by a reading. On April 23, Chicago's own Patricia Smith will read from her latest collection, The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems, which won the 2025 National Book Award for Poetry. Both events will be livestreamed, so you can join us no matter where you are.

If you will be in Chicago, don’t forget to visit our location in River North, where you can browse more than 40,000 volumes of poetry and explore back issues of Poetry in the library. For even more poetry, prose, events, and podcasts, subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

We are honored to be able to celebrate National Poetry Month with you, and hope you’ll engage with poetry no matter where you are. Our grantee-partners are spread throughout the country, so there’s a good chance one of them is based in your own community. We encourage you to check them out and possibly find a poetry event or initiative near you. Thank you for your love for poetry, poets, the arts, and the ways they enrich our lives year-round. 

Yours in poetry,

Michelle T. Boone

Poetry Foundation president & CEO