Dear Poet 2023
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.
For National Poetry Month in April, students’ letters will be published in a booklet on Poets.org alongside poets’ responses.
The submission period for Dear Poet 2023 is closed.
Helpful links
Read a brief essay about Dear Poet.
Read about one high school's participation in the project.
Use the 2023 Dear Poet lesson plan.
Download and print the Dear Poet 2023 Certificate of Completion.
(Teachers—the poems and videos are intentionally inclusive of a variety of poets, levels of content, and perspectives. Please look through the poems and videos before you show them to your class, and choose the ones that you think are most appropriate for your students.)
Letters from Dear Poet 2022
In a letter addressed to all students who wrote to her, Marie Howe writes, “I go to poetry because it knows how it feels to be alive—to be overjoyed, to be grief stricken, to be longing, to be lonely, to be afraid, to be brave, to be devoted—it holds the whole vast complicated wondrous experience of being alive. Every poem is a part of the great poem being written over time.”
Richard Blanco Reads “Looking for The Gulf Motel”
KB Brookins Reads “Good Grief”
Mahogany L. Browne Reads “Country of Water”
Marilyn Chin Reads “ADVICE (For E)”
Naomi Shihab Nye Reads “One Boy Told Me”
Danez Smith Reads “dream where every black person is standing by the ocean”
