New York, NY (September 12, 2022)— The Poetry Coalition, a network of 25+ poetry organizations, is pleased to present its third cohort of the Poetry Coalition Fellowship program. These five individuals have been selected to receive paid fellowships, each at a different host organization within the Poetry Coalition: Letras Latinas, Mass Poetry, Urban Word NYC, Woodland Pattern, and Youth Speaks. The fellows will work part-time over the course of a forty-week period beginning September 2022. The fellows will also receive professional development opportunities. 

This three-year pilot program offers paid fellowship positions to five fellows per year, or a total of fifteen fellows, from 2020 through 2023.

The 2022–2023 Poetry Coalition fellows are:

At Letras Latinas, Brent Ameneyro

Brent Ameneyro recently completed his MFA in creative writing at San Diego State University (SDSU). His poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Alaska Quarterly Review, The Iowa Review, Ninth Letter, The Journal, Azahares, Hispanic Culture Review, and elsewhere. He was a 2019 Sarah B. Marsh Rebelo Scholar and received the 2021 SRS Research Award for Diversity, Inclusion and Social Justice. He was the winner of the 2022 SDSU Electronic Literature Competition, and his E-Lit has been selected for showcases around the world including the 2022 Education and Electronic Literature Conference and Art Festival in Italy, film festivals in Denmark, Barcelona, and Hollywood, and online publication in Hayden’s Ferry Review. He will be the inaugural E-Lit editor at Los Angeles Review where he also serves as the book review editor.

At Mass Poetry, Anthony Febo

Anthony Febo is a Puerto Rican poet, teaching artist, and new dad living in Arlington, MA. Febo has been performing and teaching spoken word and theater for fifteen years in the greater Boston area. In the classroom, Febo treats each workshop as its own celebration. As an artist, Febo has toured the country individually and as half of the cooking and poetry duo Adobo-Fish-Sauce. His work explores what it means to actively choose joy in the face of what is trying to break you. His first full length book of poetry, Becoming an Island, can be purchased at Game Over Books.

At Urban Word NYC, Kimberly Nguyen

Kimberly Nguyen is a Vietnamese-American diaspora poet. Her work can be found in diaCRITICS, Hobart, Muzzle Magazine, The Minnesota Review, and others. She was a recipient of a Beatrice Daw Brown Prize, and she was a finalist for Frontier Poetry’s 2021 OPEN and New Poets Awards and Palette Poetry’s 2021 Previously Published Poem Prize. She was a 2021 Emerging Voices Fellow at PEN America and can be found at kimberlynguyenwrites.com.

At Woodland Pattern, Antonio Vargas-Nieto

Antonio Vargas-Nieto was born in Mexico and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Holding degrees in Creative Writing and Film, Video, and New Media Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, his writing borrows insight from his work behind the camera, and has been featured in Moody the Zine and Silver Operation. In 2021, Antonio founded Palm Readings, a poetry series centered around the tactile and tangible facets of poetry. He believes poetry can exist outside of dusty books and beyond any glowing screen.

At Youth Speaks, Bridgette Yang 

Bridgette Yang is a Taiwanese American creative writer and film director based in LA/SF. Intertwining honest conversations with mundane whimsicality, she aims to weave wonder both onto the page and screen. Her writing is rooted in nostalgia, while her films illuminate new worlds conceptualized through endless daydreaming. She's performed poetry at the Getty Center alongside John Legend, SFJAZZ, USC Festival of Books, and many other events throughout California. Bridgette is also a storyteller with Lucky Rabbit Pictures, a film production company based in the Bay Area.

The goals of the Poetry Coalition Fellowship program are:

  • to help diversify the leadership of the nonprofit literary field by encouraging more inclusion of individuals from under-represented communities;
  • to develop future literary leaders regardless of educational background; 
  • to introduce the individuals who are interested to nonprofit literary arts management, fundraising, programming, and editorial work, providing experiences that will be useful as they seek jobs and inspiring them to consider working in the literary field; and 
  • to increase the capacity of each host organization by having additional assistance. 

The fellowship program is made possible by the support of the Mellon Foundation.

About Letras Latinas

Letras Latinas, the literary initiative at the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies, enhances the visibility, appreciation, and study of Latinx literature, including through two national poetry prizes. The initiative emphasizes programs that spur collaboration across disciplines and between organizations, such as Pintura/Palabra, Curated Conversation(s): A Latinx Poetry Show, and the Akrilica series, a co-publishing venture with Noemi Press that supports innovative Latinx poets and writers.

About Mass Poetry 

Mass Poetry envisions a world where poetry catalyzes understanding & connection. Our innovative programs—such as U35, the Massachusetts Poetry Festival, and our Poet-in-Residence program—empower diverse communities across the Commonwealth. Mass Poetry’s newest initiative, a teen spoken word program, aims to lift all voices and spark self-expression. Learn more about Mass Poetry online (www.masspoetry.org) or visit us in-person at GrubStreet’s Center for Creative Writing, where we now serve as an arts partner-in-residence.

About Urban Word NYC

Urban Word elevates youth voices and leaders at the intersection of the literary arts and civic engagement. Through the transformative power of the written and spoken word, Urban Word provides young, creative voices, often those that are marginalized, the tools, training, and platforms to rewrite the narratives that shape their lives and to own their agency in directing the future of their communities. As one of the oldest youth literary arts organizations in the United States, Urban Word annually serves more than 25,000 NYC youth between the ages of 13 and 19 through its local and school- based programming including free virtual workshops, special events & slams, our weekly open mic, and our annual Summer Institute. As the founder of the National Youth Poet Laureate Program, we created and presently curate a model for youth poetry and civic engagement replicated in communities across the country. 

About Woodland Pattern

Founded in Milwaukee in 1979 as a forum and resource center for poets and other artists in the Great Lakes region, Woodland Pattern Book Center is dedicated to the discovery, cultivation, and presentation of poetry, independent literature, and the arts. Home to a nationally recognized collection of small press-poetry and offering each year more than 400 activities and events, Woodland Pattern promotes a lifetime practice of reading and writing through programs that encourage exchange across the visual, performing, and literary arts.

About Youth Speaks

Youth Speaks believes that every young person is a creative changemaker waiting to emerge, and provides them with the guidance, support, and artistic opportunities they need to find and apply their voices. As one of the world’s leading presenters of spoken word poetry performance, storytelling, and youth development programs, Youth Speaks produces local and national youth poetry slams, festivals, and reading series, alongside a comprehensive slate of arts-in-education programs during the school day and during out-of-school time. Youth Speaks exists to create spaces that challenge youth to develop and amplify their voices as creators of societal change.

About the Academy of American Poets

Founded in 1934, the Academy of American Poets is the nation’s leading champion of poets and poetry with supporters in all fifty states and beyond. The organization annually awards more than $1.3 million to more 200+ poets at various stages of their careers through its prize and fellowship programs. The organization also produces Poets.org, the world’s largest publicly funded website for poets and poetry; established and organizes National Poetry Month each April; publishes the popular Poem-a-Day series and American Poets magazine; provides free resources to K–12 educators, including the award-winning weekly Teach This Poem series; hosts an annual series of poetry readings and special events; and coordinates a national Poetry Coalition working to promote the value poets bring to our culture.

About the Mellon Foundation

The Mellon Foundation is the nation’s largest supporter of the arts and humanities. Since 1969, the Foundation has been guided by its core belief that the humanities and arts are essential to human understanding. The Foundation believes that the arts and humanities are where we express our complex humanity, and that everyone deserves the beauty, transcendence, and freedom that can be found there. Through its grants, the Foundation seeks to build just communities enriched by meaning and empowered by critical thinking, where ideas and imagination can thrive. Learn more at mellon.org.