Academy of American Poets Announces 2027 Poem-a-Day Guest Editors
Serving over 300,000 subscribers, the free, daily series connects readers with new poetry selected by twelve distinguished poets.
New York, NY (November 3, 2026)—Advancing its mission to support poets and bring the transformative power of poetry to a growing readership, the Academy of American Poets announces the 2027 Guest Editors of Poem-a-Day, its signature series featuring new work by contemporary poets. Free to readers and serving over 300,000 subscribers, Poem-a-Day connects poets at different stages of their careers with a broad audience, making the discovery of poetry part of everyday life. The series reaches additional readers and listeners through Poets.org, its podcast, and social media.
The 2027 Guest Editors are Catherine Barnett, Morgan Parker, Diana Khoi Nguyen, Tina Chang, Quan Barry, Roque Raquel Salas Rivera, Kay Ulanday Barrett, Anis Mojgani, Valzhyna Mort, Tomás Q. Morín, Kenzie Allen, and Ellen Bass. Since 2018, the Academy has invited twelve Guest Editors each year to select a month of weekday poems for Poem-a-Day. Each brings an individual editorial vision to the series, introducing readers to new work by both emerging and established poets.
The 2027 Guest Editors bring together a former Academy Chancellor, current and former state poets laureate, recipients of major literary awards, a champion slam poet, translators, novelists, memoirists, essayists, and interdisciplinary artists. Their honors include the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Griffin Poetry Prize, the Lambda Literary Award, and the Academy’s James Laughlin Award and Ambroggio Prize, as well as Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships. Together, they bring experience that spans the page, the stage, visual art, and literary translation, alongside work in classrooms, community poetry projects, and disability and trans justice advocacy.
“These Guest Editors are not only familiar names in contemporary poetry but are also themselves past contributors to Poem-a-Day,” says Mary Sutton, editorial director at the Academy. “They come to this task with an understanding of the unique importance of this platform and the breadth of its audience. As the only publication that offers new, never before published poems from contemporary poets each day, Poem-a-Day is exemplary of the Academy’s mission to ensure the relevance of American poetry to readers of all ages and backgrounds. By sharing work from a variety of poets, both luminaries and those nascent in their careers, formalists and avant-gardists among them, we illustrate to our audience daily the vast possibilities for expression within this art form.”
The editors’ contributions to poetry extend well beyond their own books. They include multilingual anthologies and translation projects, poetry workshops in prisons and jails, and a telephone hotline that invites callers to listen to a poem. Their work reflects the many ways poets connect with communities—a commitment that Poem-a-Day carries forward by giving readers free, direct access to contemporary poetry and the people who create it.
Readers can sign up to receive Poem-a-Day free in their inboxes at poets.org/poem-a-day.
Meet the 2027 Guest Editors
January: Catherine Barnett
Catherine Barnett is the author of Solutions for the Problem of Bodies in Space (Graywolf, 2024) and three earlier collections, including The Game of Boxes, winner of the Academy of American Poets’ James Laughlin Award. A Guggenheim Fellow, she teaches in New York University’s creative writing program and works as an independent editor.
February: Morgan Parker
Morgan Parker is the author of Magical Negro (Tin House Books, 2019), winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, and There Are More Beautiful Things than Beyoncé (Tin House Books, 2017). Her work also includes essays and young adult fiction. A National Endowment for the Arts fellowship recipient, she teaches at Swarthmore College.
March: Diana Khoi Nguyen
Diana Khoi Nguyen is the author of Root Fractures (Scribner, 2024) and Ghost oOf (Omnidawn, 2018), a National Book Award finalist and winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. A Kundiman Fellow, she teaches at the University of Pittsburgh and in Randolph College’s low-residency MFA program.
April: Tina Chang
Tina Chang is the author of Lion (W. W. Norton, 2026), Hybrida (W. W. Norton, 2019), and two earlier poetry collections. She coedited, with Nathalie Handal and Ravi Shankar, Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia and Beyond. Named Brooklyn poet laureate in 2010, she received an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship in 2020.
May: Quan Barry
Quan Barry is a poet, novelist, and playwright whose poetry collections include Loose Strife (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015) and Water Puppets, winner of the AWP Donald Hall Prize for Poetry. The recipient of National Endowment for the Arts fellowships in poetry and fiction, she is the Lorraine Hansberry Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
June: Roque Raquel Salas Rivera
Roque Raquel Salas Rivera is the author of la bella crisis (Semipermeable, 2026) and Algarabía: The Song of Cenex, Natural Son of the Isle Alarabíyya (Graywolf, 2025), among other collections. A recipient of the Ambroggio Prize and a former Philadelphia poet laureate, he is a cofounder of the Puerto Rican Literature Project.
July: Kay Ulanday Barrett
Kay Ulanday Barrett is a poet, essayist, and disability justice and trans justice advocate. Their collection More than Organs (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2020) received a Stonewall Barbara Gittings Literature Honor Award and was a Lambda Literary Award finalist. They are also the author of When the Chant Comes and a recipient of the Cy Twombly Award for Poetry.
August: Anis Mojgani
Anis Mojgani is the author of six poetry collections, including The Tigers, They Let Me (Write Bloody, 2023). A two-time National Poetry Slam Individual Champion, he served two terms as Oregon’s poet laureate and received an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship in 2021. He is the cocreator of the Oregon-based Tele-poem Hotline.
September: Valzhyna Mort
Valzhyna Mort is a poet and translator whose collection Music for the Dead and Resurrected (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020) won the Griffin Poetry Prize and the UNT Rilke Prize. Born in Minsk, Belarus, she writes in English and Belarusian and translates across five languages. A Guggenheim Fellow, she teaches at Cornell University.
October: Tomás Q. Morín
Tomás Q. Morín is the author of the forthcoming My Favorite Things (Alfred A. Knopf, 2027) and Machete (Alfred A. Knopf, 2021), as well as fiction, memoir, and translation. His debut collection, A Larger Country, won the APR/Honickman Prize. A Guggenheim Fellow, he teaches creative writing at Rice University.
November: Kenzie Allen
Kenzie Allen is a Haudenosaunee poet and multimodal artist, and a first-generation descendant of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin. She is the author of Cloud Missives (Tin House, 2024) and a recipient of the inaugural James Welch Prize for Indigenous Poets. She teaches creative writing and Indigenous literatures at York University in Toronto.
December: Ellen Bass
Ellen Bass is the author of Indigo (Copper Canyon Press, 2020) and the forthcoming Oh Honey, Oh Baby (Copper Canyon Press, 2027). A former Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a Guggenheim Fellow, she coedited No More Masks! An Anthology of Poems by Women (Anchor Books, 1973) with Florence Howe and founded poetry workshops in prisons and jails in California.
About Poem-a-Day
Poem-a-Day publishes previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets every weekday and classic poems on weekends. Each weekday installment includes an audio recording of the poet reading their work, an “about this poem” statement, a short biography, and a link to a recent or forthcoming book. These features invite readers to explore a poet’s voice, creative process, and larger body of work, building connections that can continue beyond a single day’s poem. Readers can sign up to receive Poem-a-Day free in their inboxes at poets.org/poem-a-day.
About the Academy of American Poets
Founded in 1934, the Academy of American Poets is the largest poetry membership organization in the United States. Each year, the Academy awards more than $1.3 million to poets at various stages of their careers through its prize program. It also produces Poets.org, the world’s largest publicly funded website for poets and poetry; organizes National Poetry Month each April; publishes the Poem-a-Day series and American Poets magazine; provides free resources to educators; hosts public poetry programs and special events; and coordinates a national Poetry Coalition that promotes the value poets bring to our culture. To learn more about the Academy of American Poets, visit https://poets.org/.
Media Contact
Peggy Ryan, Senior Manager of Marketing and Communications
Academy of American Poets
[email protected]
212-274-0343