New York, NY (March 27, 2023)—The poet laureate of the United States, Ada Limón, has selected twenty new poems by contemporary poets to be featured in the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series as part of a collaboration with the Library of Congress, and as a special offering this April, which is National Poetry Month.
“It is fascinating to witness the singular approach that each poet-curator brings to their role as Poem-a-Day Guest Editor, selecting new poems that will be shared for the first time, and among a vast and growing audience of hundreds of thousands of readers,” said Tess O’Dwyer, Chair of the Board. “The poems that Ada Limón has selected for this National Poetry Month not only mark the latest happenings in the art form, but also provide deep insights into the poet laureate’s own craft, taste, and values.”
“I wanted poems that felt like they had a life to them; that they were expansive in some way; that they were reaching out towards a reader, whether that reader was one intimate person or a larger readership. I wanted them to feel like they were vibrating. I think of April as an alive month, when we come back to life in some ways. And so I wanted these poems to perform a little resurrection, I think,” said Limón.
Among the poets selected by Limón to be featured in April are National Book Award-nominated poet and Guggenheim Fellow Victoria Chang; Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and MacArthur Fellow Natalie Diaz; National Book Award finalist and Guggenheim Fellow Carl Phillips; Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and Guggenheim Fellow Diane Seuss; and Wallace Stegner Fellow Paul Tran; as well as other acclaimed poets.
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In 2022, Ada Limón was appointed the United States poet laureate by the Library of Congress. Limón’s first collection of poetry, Lucky Wreck (Autumn House Press, 2006), was the winner of the 2005 Autumn House Poetry Prize. She is also the author of The Hurting Kind (Milkweed Editions, 2022); The Carrying (Milkweed Editions, 2018); Bright Dead Things (Milkweed Editions, 2015), a finalist for the National Book Award; Sharks in the Rivers (Milkweed Editions, 2010); and This Big Fake World (Pearl Editions, 2006), winner of the 2005 Pearl Poetry Prize. A 2001–2002 fellow at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center and a Guggenheim Fellow, Limón has also received a grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts and won the Chicago Literary Award for Poetry. She splits her time between Lexington, Kentucky, and Sonoma, California.
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 $1.3+ million to more than two hundred 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 that promotes the value poets bring to our culture. To learn more about the Academy of American Poets, including its staff, its Board of Directors, and its Board of Chancellors, visit: https://poets.org/.