Academy of American Poets Names Gabrielle Calvocoressi and Cornelius Eady as New Chancellors
New York, NY (January 26, 2026)—The Academy of American Poets, a leading supporter of poets and poetry in the United States, announces the election of Gabrielle Calvocoressi and Cornelius Eady as Chancellors of the Academy.
Established in 1946, the Board of Chancellors is a group of fifteen distinguished poets who advise the Academy of American Poets on artistic matters, judge its largest legacy prizes, and serve as ambassadors of poetry.
The Board of Chancellors has included many of the most celebrated voices in American poetry, among them Elizabeth Alexander, John Ashbery, W. H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Marilyn Chin, Lucille Clifton, Robert Creeley, Rita Dove, Louise Glück, Marie Howe, Yusef Komunyakaa, Naomi Shihab Nye, Claudia Rankine, Adrienne Rich, Mark Strand, and Arthur Sze.
The elections of Gabrielle Calvocoressi and Cornelius Eady as Chancellors recognizes their distinguished bodies of work and their enduring contributions to poetry as writers, teachers, and advocates. Their influence on contemporary poetry in the United States is reflected in their artistic achievement and their sustained commitment to teaching and to literary communities. Calvocoressi’s contributions include a body of poetry recognized with both major national and regional awards and a longstanding dedication to teaching, while Eady’s contributions span award-winning poetry, playwriting, and the founding of Cave Canem. They will each serve a six-year term.
“The Academy enters a promising era in 2026, sparked by the visionary leadership of Robert Casper as the new President and Executive Director—and the additions of Gabrielle Calvocoressi and Cornelius Eady to our Board of Chancellors. We embrace these formidable voices who will help to ensure that American poetry remains a vital source of connection and inspiration for a rising generation of poets and readers worldwide,” said Tess O’Dwyer, Board Chair.
“I’m thrilled to welcome Gabrielle Calvocoressi and Cornelius Eady as the Academy’s newest Chancellors,” said Robert Casper, President and Executive Director of the Academy of American Poets. “Both are among our most celebrated poets and poetry champions, and both will continue the eighty-year-old promise of the Chancellorship: to support poets and represent the art at the highest level.”
Calvocoressi and Eady were elected by members of the 2025 Board of Chancellors: Jericho Brown, Natalie Diaz, Nikky Finney, Carolyn Forché, Kimiko Hahn, Ilya Kaminsky, Dorianne Laux, Ada Limón, Ed Roberson, Diane Seuss, Patricia Smith, Tracy K. Smith, Afaa Michael Weaver, Eleanor Wilner, and Kevin Young.
We thank Chancellors Emeriti Dorianne Laux and Kevin Young, whose terms ended in 2025, for their service.
About the New Chancellors
Gabrielle Calvocoressi is the author of the poetry collections The New Economy (Copper Canyon Press, 2025), a finalist for the National Book Award; Rocket Fantastic (Persea Books, 2017), winner of the Publishing Triangle’s Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry; Apocalyptic Swing (Persea Books, 2009), a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; and The Last Time I Saw Amelia Earhart (Persea Books, 2005), which was short-listed for the Northern California Book Award and won the Connecticut Book Award in Poetry.
Calvocoressi is the recipient of numerous other honors and fellowships, including a Wallace Stegner Fellowship and the Jones Lectureship from Stanford University, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, a Lannan Foundation residency in Marfa, Texas, the Bernard F. Conners Prize for Poetry from The Paris Review, and a residency from the Civitella Ranieri Foundation. Calvocoressi teaches at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and lives in Durham, North Carolina.
Cornelius Eady is a poet and playwright, and the author of numerous collections of poetry, including Hardheaded Weather (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2008), a nominee for an NAACP Image Award; Brutal Imagination (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2001), which was a finalist for the 2001 National Book Award in Poetry; and Victims of the Latest Dance Craze (Ommation Press, 1986), selected by Philip Booth, Louise Glück, and Charles Simic as the 1985 Lamont Poetry Selection from the Academy of American Poets. In 1996, Eady and fellow poet Toi Derricotte founded Cave Canem. In 2016, Derricotte and Eady accepted the National Book Foundation’s Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community on behalf of Cave Canem.
In 2023, Eady received the Pegasus Award for Service in Poetry alongside Derricotte. The following year, he received the Furious Flower Lifetime Achievement Award. Eady has served as director of the Poetry Center at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He was the Miller Family Endowed Chair in Literature and Writing and a professor of English and theatre at the University of Missouri–Columbia. Eady is currently the Chair of Excellence in the English department at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
About the Academy of American Poets
Founded in 1934, the Academy of American Poets is a leading publisher of contemporary poetry in the United States. The organization annually 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, including its staff, its Board of Directors, and its Board of Chancellors, visit https://poets.org/.
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