“I’m a single mother living with my young child in Appalachia, and I received a 2015 NEA fellowship. I don’t have a teaching job, and my savings were spent long ago on food. The NEA represents hope for my family, our chance for a future: the down payment on a house. It will be the first house of our own that my son and I have ever had. My work that received the grant is about people living in poverty. The NEA made me feel we aren’t invisible, that ordinary people and our struggles matter. Artists survive terrible things: abuse, oppression, poverty. Some don't survive. NEA fellowships are not just accolades, but a lifeline for many like me.”
The National Endowment for the Arts is the largest single funder of the arts across America and has helped make Poets.org possible. Learn more about how you can support the NEA.