June 16, 2020 (New York, NY)— The Academy of American Poets is honored to announce six new guest editors for Poem-a-Day, the organization’s daily poetry series, who will each select work by contemporary Black poets to be featured in the publication on weekdays throughout the summer. These new curatorial partnerships are part of the Academy’s ongoing work to make unequivocally clear the essential and influential contributions that Black poets have made and make to American poetry.
Poem-a-Day is the original and only digital series featuring new work by today's poets. Reaching more than 500,000 readers each morning on Poets.org and via email and social media, Poem-a-Day is one of the largest platforms for a poet to share new work.
The six new guest editors are:
Major Jackson (June 22–July 3)
January Gill O’Neil (July 6–July 17)
Mahogany L. Browne (July 20–July 31)
Marilyn Nelson (August 3–August 14)
A. H. Jerriod Avant (August 17–August 28)
Nicole Sealey (August 31–September 11)
After September 11, the guest editors who had been previously selected for 2020 will resume their curation of Poem-a-Day:
David Tomas Martinez (September 14–October 16)
Ari Banias (October 16–October 31)
Heid E. Erdrich (November)
Brian Blanchfield (December)
Fatimah Asghar (January 2021)
Sasha Pimentel (March 2021)
Jane Hirshfield (April 2021)
To receive the free email version of Poem-a-Day each morning, sign up at poets.org/poem-a-day.
To view the full list of Poem-a-Day guest editors in 2020, visit poets.org/poem-day-guest-editors-2020.
About the Academy of American Poets
The Academy of American Poets is the nation’s leading champion of poets and poetry with supporters in all fifty states. Founded in 1934, the organization produces Poets.org, the world’s largest publicly funded website for poets and poetry; organizes National Poetry Month; publishes the popular Poem-a-Day series and American Poets magazine; provides award-winning resources to K–12 educators, including the Teach This Poem series; administers the American Poets Prizes; hosts an annual series of poetry readings and special events; and coordinates a national Poetry Coalition working together to promote the value poets bring to our culture. Through its prize program, the organization annually awards more funds to individual poets than any other organization, giving a total of $1,250,000 to more than 200 poets at various stages of their careers. This year, in response to the global health crisis, the Academy joined six other national organizations to launch Artist Relief, a multidisciplinary coalition of arts grantmakers and a consortium of foundations working to provide resources and funding to the country’s individual poets, writers, and artists who are impacted by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.