The Poetry Coalition is a national alliance of nearly thirty organizations working together to promote the value poets bring to our culture and the important contribution poetry makes in the lives of people of all ages and backgrounds. Members are nonprofit organizations whose primary mission is to promote poets and poetry, and/or multi-genre literary organizations that serve poets in the disability community and of specific racial, ethnic, or gender identities, backgrounds, or communities. All members present poets at live events. (Founding members are denoted below with an asterisk.)
Launched in 2016, the Poetry Coalition and its founding members have presented annual programming across the country on themes of social importance, including Poetry & Migration (2017), Poetry & the Body (2017), Poetry & Democracy (2019), Poetry & Protest (2020), Poetry & Environmental Justice (2021), Poetry & Disability Justice (2022), and Poetry & Grief (2023). In spring-summer 2024, the coalition presented programs and publications that reflect the transformative impact poetry has on individual readers and communities across the nation.
With generous support from the Mellon Foundation, the Poetry Coalition launched a pilot fellowship program for emerging arts administrators in 2020 through 2023. With renewed and increased funding in 2024, the coalition has expanded the number of fellowships, which will be offered through 2027, and will offer a series of professional development sessions for its members.
The Academy of American Poets is the administrative and fiscal coordinator of the Poetry Coalition, and we are grateful to the Mellon Foundation for their support of this work. For more information, please contact [email protected] and follow along on social media at #PoetryCoalition.