The Academy of American Poets has announced two grants totaling more than $5.7 million over three years from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to expand the Poet Laureate Fellowships program and the Poetry Coalition.

Established in 2019 with support from Mellon, the fellowships program has supported the work of 104 laureates in 92 communities, transforming the role of local and state poets laureate across the nation. The largest philanthropic award ever to the academy will support the fellowships program and enable the organization to continue to serve as the fiscal administrator of the Poetry Coalition, which includes more than 30 nonprofit organizations across the country presenting community-wide poetry programming that reaches more than 30 million individuals annually.

“Throughout history, poets have helped us examine ourselves and our responsibilities to each other,” said Academy of American Poets president and executive director Ricardo Alberto Maldonado. “The academy believes that poetry is best served by a wide range of national and regional actions, and includes a spectrum of voices that speak directly to the communities of which we are a part. We’re grateful to the Mellon Foundation for its commitment to the collective work of poets laureate and literary organizations across the U.S.”

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