Poetry Foundation Receives $150,000 Mellon Foundation Grant
Support expands funding for poetry education, emerging poets, and poetry in new communities
CHICAGO–The Poetry Foundation is pleased to announce the receipt of a $150,000 Mellon Foundation Grant. The grant will support a selection of the Poetry Foundation’s ongoing programs for two years. The Mellon Foundation grant will fund expansion in four existing programs focused on diversity and inclusion of underserved communities: the Summer Poetry Institute for Educators; the Poetry Incubator for Emerging Poets in Service to Community and Poetry Block Party; Poetry for Patients; and Poetry for Life. These four programs have broadened the Poetry Foundation’s reach, both geographically and with respect to the cultural and socio-economic diversity of the people served.
Summer Poetry Institute for Educators
Teachers are best able to foster a lifelong enthusiasm for poetry in their students when they are well-equipped to do so. Over the last two years, the Poetry Foundation has brought together more than 120 K–12 teachers for a free week-long summer institute. The Mellon Foundation grant will allow the Poetry Foundation to expand the current program to community college instructors, with a special focus on the City Colleges of Chicago, enhancing the poetry education available to students in Chicago beyond their high school years.
Poetry Incubator for Emerging Poets in Service to Community and Poetry Block Party
With the goal of developing and nurturing a national network of poets who do community work as part of their poetic practice, the Poetry Foundation and Crescendo Literary created the Poetry Incubator in the summer of 2016. The program brought together 27 emerging poets from across the United States for two days of workshops and seminars. The Incubator culminated in a public block party in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood. The Mellon Foundation grant provides seed funding for the doubling of the block party audience and for two community projects developed by future Incubator poets. View our press release for the 2016 Poetry Incubator here.
Poetry for Patients
The Poetry Foundation and Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine began a collaboration in 2016 to investigate the therapeutic effects of poetry. Poetry for Patients provides contemporary poetry resources to a select group of doctors providing palliative care and working with high-risk obstetrics patients at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center in Chicago. With Mellon Foundation support, the Poetry Foundation and Northwestern University plan to expand the program by training additional staff and volunteer doctors in hospitals across Chicago and potentially in other cities.
Poetry for Life Program
Through the Poetry for Life program, Alzheimer’s Poetry Project (APP) staff and volunteers work with students from Poetry Out Loud, a national poetry recitation competition for high schoolers, to improve the quality of life of people living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia by facilitating creative expression through poetry recitation. Support from the Mellon Foundation will enable the Poetry Foundation to increase its annual grants to Poetry for Life, which will help APP expand artist training, increase site visits, create online resources, and document the program.
“The Poetry Foundation seeks to bring poetry to neighborhoods and communities with limited access to arts programming,” said Henry Bienen, president of the Poetry Foundation. “We are grateful to the Mellon Foundation for helping us foster talented new poets and new audiences and for supporting our mission to shape a more robust climate for poetry.”
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About the Poetry Foundation
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine, is an independent literary organization committed to a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture. It exists to discover and celebrate the best poetry and to place it before the largest possible audience. The Poetry Foundation seeks to be a leader in shaping a receptive climate for poetry by developing new audiences, creating new avenues for delivery, and encouraging new kinds of poetry through innovative literary prizes and programs. For more information, please visit poetryfoundation.org.
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Media contact:
Polly Faust, pfaust@poetryfoundation.org, 312.799.8065
Elizabeth Burke-Dain, eburkedain@poetryfoundation.org, 312.799.8016