Academy of American Poets Announces New Prize for Poets Who Address Climate Change

Created in partnership with Treehouse Investments (a social impact firm), the Academy of American Poets's Treehouse Climate Action Poem Prize will award funds from $500 to $1,000 to three poets, to "honor exceptional poems that help make real for readers the gravity of the vulnerable state of our environment at present." More: 

“We’re grateful to have the opportunity to address the climate crisis through poetry and hope the poets’ poems we’ll publish might inspire people to learn more about the issue and how they can help,” said Jennifer Benka, executive director of the Academy of American Poets. 

The charitable poetry organization has partnered with Treehouse Investments, a social impact firm, which is funding the prize.  

“The science of climate change is unequivocal; its negative social and financial consequences are clear; the technological solutions to reverse it exist. And yet we as a society are clearly failing to deal with the issue at sufficient scale and speed. So why address climate change with poems? Because a good poem can remind us of everything we share, and everything we put at risk. Because poems are the backbone of our culture and this, more than anything else, is what needs to change,” said Dominique Slavin, managing director of Treehouse Investments. 

Submissions are accepted September 1, 2019 through November 1, 2019. Learn more at the Academy of American Poets.