Thursday, April 1, marks the beginning of the 25th anniversary of National Poetry Month, an occasion launched by the Academy of American Poets to celebrate the integral role that poets and poetry have in our culture. This year, National Poetry Month has taken on new meaning and importance, with more readers turning to poetry than ever before.
From January 1, 2020 to January 1, 2021, traffic to poems on Poets.org was up 116% over the previous year. This increase is the largest the organization has seen in a one-year period since Poets.org launched in 1996, the same year that the Academy founded National Poetry Month.
In honor of National Poetry Month’s 25th anniversary, and in recognition of the recent surge in poetry readership, the Academy of American Poets offers a number of special virtual programs to assist readers in joining the celebration online and at home, and in the virtual classroom, throughout the month of April and beyond.