Poetry Society of America

Public programs:the Poetry Society presents live and digital programs that explore the work of individual poets, as well as important themes in contemporary Poetry. These include a wide variety of events in the Poetry Society's storefront space: readings, seminars, workshops, teacher trainings, children's programs, and exhibition openings. The Poetry Society also partners with harlem academy to present the visiting poets program, which brings profession poets into the classroom to teach the reading and writing of Poetry to middle school students. The Poetry Society's digital programs, including video recordings of live events as well as the publication of essays, interviews, and original poems, serve hundreds of poets and tens of thousands of readers each year.

Poetry and public spacesince 1992, the Poetry Society has presented Poetry in motion, which places poems in transit systems around the country, creating unexpected and meaningful encounters in public spaces between poems and millions of readers. In 2021, the program expanded to include the Washington dc area metro system and path/port authority stations in new jersey and new york. The program serves approximately 9 million people each year. Poetry in motion is now the cornerstone of a larger array of programs in public space, including partnerships with civic organizations to present poetry-based public art projects. In 2022, the Poetry Society partnered with the downtown brooklyn partnership to preset seeing into tomorrow, which transformed poems by richard wright into large-scale installations on walls in several brooklyn neighborhoods. In april 2023, the Poetry Society launched park poems, a partnership with nyc parks to place poems in five public parks, one in each borough. This program area also includes poems on wheels, a partnership with meals on wheels chapters around the country to provide poems along with nourishing meals to homebound seniors.

Annual awards:each year, the Poetry Society offers 12 awards to honor and support poets at every stage of their careers, ranging from an award for a student poet to best first book to lifetime achievement in Poetry. Recipients of the Poetry Society's most distinguished award, the frost medal, have included gwendolyn brooks, wallace stevens, marianne moore, john ashbery, and lucille clifton. In 2023, the frost medal was awarded to juan felipe herrera. Recipients of the four quartets prize for best Poetry sequence have included dante micheaux, danez smith, and john murillo. Each year, the Poetry Society also awards two chapbook fellowships, which include a prize of $1,000 and the publication of their first chapbook, along with mentorship by an established poet in the editorial and publication process.