Dear Poet 2022
Engage directly with award-winning poets as part of National Poetry Month.
Every National Poetry Month we present Dear Poet, a multimedia education project that invites young people in grades five through twelve to write letters in response to poems written and read by award-winning poets, including poets who serve on the Academy of American Poets Board of Chancellors and who have received our Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowships.
The submission period for Dear Poet 2022 is closed.
Dear Poet Letters 2022
We’re pleased to share that in 2022, we received over 2,500 letters. These students hail from 127 schools in rural, suburban, and urban areas in thirty-four states and three countries.
We shared these letters with our chancellors and poets laureate fellows, who replied to many of them individually. Several poets also wrote a letter addressed to the hundreds of students who wrote in.
Read letters to Marcus Amaker and his responses.
Read letters to Ellen Bass and her responses.
Read letters to Semaj Brown and her responses.
Read letters to Aileen Cassinetto and her responses.
Read letters to Marilyn Chin and her responses.
Read letters to Kwame Dawes and his responses.
Read letters to Marie Howe and her responses.
Read letters to Luisa A. Igloria and her responses.
Read letters to Forrest Gander and his responses.
Read letters to Kari Gunter-Seymour and her responses.
Read letters to Dasha Kelly Hamilton and his responses.
Read letters to Melissa Kwasny and her responses.
Read letters to Dorianne Laux and her responses.
Read letters to Magdalena Gómez and her responses.
Read letters to Georgina Marie Guardado and her responses.
Read letters to Anis Mojgani and his responses.
Read letters to Chelsea Rathburn and her responses.
Read letters to M. Bartley Seigel and his responses.
Read letters to M.L. Smoker and her responses.
Read letters to Leslie Contreras Schwartz and her responses.
Read letters to Lloyd Schwartz and his responses.
Read letters to Brian Sonia-Wallace and his responses.
Helpful links
Letters from Dear Poet 2021
In a letter addressed to a student, Chancellor Ellen Bass writes,“What you say is so true: “everything matters, no matter how small any act of kindness is.” I believe this too. And I’m trying to practice it in my life, though I fall short often. But I think the intention is key. Remembering that that’s what I want to do.”
Marcus Amaker Reads, “Give Yourself Some Flowers”
Ellen Bass Reads, “ If You Knew”
Semaj Brown Reads, “Black Dandelion”
Aileen Cassinetto Reads, “There are no kings in America”
Marilyn Chin Reads, “Shadowless Shadow”
Leslie Contreras Schwartz Reads, “A Body’s Universe of Big Bangs”
Kwame Dawes Reads, “Purple”
Forrest Gander Reads, “The Conversation”
Magdalena Gómez Reads, “La Biblioteca is a Doula”
Georgina Marie Guardado Reads, “Eye on the Sparrow”
Chasity Gunn Reads, “Mementos of a Summer Day”
Kari Gunter-Seymour Reads, “I Come From A Place So Deep Inside America It Can’t Be Seen”
Marie Howe Reads, “The Gate”
Luisa A. Igloria Reads, “Ode to Tired Bumblebees Who Fall Asleep Inside Flowers with Pollen on their Butts”
Dasha Kelly Hamilton Reads, “All the Lives We Are”
Melissa Kwasny Reads, “Counting the Senses”
Dorianne Laux Reads, “What's Broken”
Debra Marquart Reads, “Lament”
Trapeta Mayson Reads, “An invitation to travel”
Anis Mojgani Reads, “Leda”
Chelsea Rathburn Reads, “Shocks and Changes”
Lloyd Schwartz Reads, “A True Poem”
M. Bartley Seigel Reads, “Into the Thicket”
M.L. Smoker Reads, “Book of the Missing, Murdered and Indigenous—Chapter 1”
Brian Sonia-Wallace Reads, “Heirloom”
David St. John Reads, “Beeches”
