In 2025, Esther Belin was named an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow. In partnership with the Durango Public Library, Esther Belin will pay homage to the Four Corners region in the Southwest with a 4 Corners Poetry Festival. The festival will celebrate the rich stories and poetic forms rooted in the community and connect the people of the region with their deep and complex histories, which include Indigenous homelands, agriculture, mining, higher education, the arts, and outdoor recreation. The festival’s programming will focus on building borderless poetic narratives by highlighting an array of poets, including elder poets over age sixty; Indigenous, Latinx, and LGBTQ poets; and those who identify as multilingual.