The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation has announced a $1.7 million grant to the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) to launch the 2024 Dodge Poetry initiative.

The initiative celebrates poetry as a catalyst for communities to advance social change. The grant will expand the foundation’s biennial poetry festival, which has been headquartered at NJPAC since 2010, to include poetry programs in Newark throughout the year. The events of the 20th celebration of the Dodge Poetry Festival will have three goals: to mobilize communities and fuel movements for social change, amplify poet activists who challenge and reframe existing narratives and norms, and create spaces for empathy, healing, and repair for individuals who have experienced systemic racism.

“The Dodge Foundation has a long legacy of creating opportunities for people to explore and engage with poetry. Now, the reimagined Dodge Poetry will expand our ability to reach new places and people, and focus our programming on artists and activists who interrogate and address issues of social justice,” said Dodge Foundation president and CEO Tanuja Dehne. “By holding these events and the festival across Newark, we will honor the city’s legacy and further amplify the voices and narratives of those who have been at the forefront of activism for racial justice.”

(Photo credit: Getty Images/FG Trade)