Margaret Gibson, Connecticut Poet Laureate, Receives Poet Laureate Fellowship From The Academy of American Poets

Margaret Gibson  June 11, 2020

The Academy of American Poets is pleased to announce that Margaret Gibson, Poet Laureate of Connecticut, has been awarded a grant of $50,000 as part of the 2020 Poet Laureate Fellowship program. The Academy awarded fellowships to 23 poets who serve as Poets Laureate of states, cities, counties, and the Navajo Nation. A portion of each grant goes to support the individual poet with another portion used to lead and support civic poetry programs in their respective communities in the year ahead. 

Gibson’s original plan was to host eco-themed poetry readings throughout the state, featuring Connecticut Town Poets Laureate and local poets in designated “Green Poetry Cafes” and in natural settings such as nature preserves. Due to the restrictions on gatherings from the Covid-19 pandemic, Gibson will organize some events as online poetry readings that will be available on multiple websites. There will also be some in-person poetry events in the future. Gibson will also co-edit an anthology of Connecticut poets writing about the natural world and climate change to be published by Grayson Press in 2021. 

Margaret Gibson, named State of Connecticut Poet Laureate in 2019, is the author of 12 books of poems, all from LSU Press, most recently Not Hearing the Wood Thrush, 2018. A new book, The Glass Globe, is forthcoming in 2021.  AWARDS include the Lamont Selection for Long Walks in the Afternoon, her second book, 1982; the Melville Kane Award (co-winner) for Memories of the Future, (1986), and the Connecticut Book Award for One Body, 2008. The Vigil was a Finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry in 1993. Broken Cup was a Finalist for 2016 Poets’ Prize, and the title poem from the book won a Pushcart Prize for that year.  “Passage,” from Not Hearing the Wood Thrush, was included in The Best American Poetry, 2017.  She has written a memoir, The Prodigal Daughter, University of Missouri Press, 2008. Gibson is Professor Emerita, University of Connecticut.  She lives in Preston, CT.  For more information, visit her website.

 “As we face the crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic, more and more people are turning to poetry for comfort and courage. We are honored and humbled in this moment of great need to fund poets who are talented artists and community organizers, who will most certainly help guide their communities forward,” said Jennifer Benka, President and Executive Director of the Academy of American Poets.

 Through its Poets Laureate Fellowship program, the Academy has become the largest financial supporter of poets in the nation. The fellowship program is made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which, in January of this year, awarded the Academy $4.5 million. The award will fund the program in 2020, 2021, and 2022.

 “We are gratified to support the Poets Laureate Fellows as they engage their communities around the unprecedented challenges of our moment, making work that provides meaning, brings beauty, and helps us, in Lucille Clifton’s words, ‘sail through this to that,’” said Elizabeth Alexander, poet and President of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. 

About the Academy of American Poets

The Academy of American Poets is the nation’s leading champion of poets and poetry with supporters in all fifty states. Founded in 1934, the organization produces Poets.org, the world’s largest publicly funded website for poets and poetry; organizes National Poetry Month; publishes the popular Poem-a-Day series and American Poets magazine; provides award-winning resources to K–12 educators, including the Teach This Poem series; administers the American Poets Prizes; hosts an annual series of poetry readings and special events; and coordinates a national Poetry Coalition working together to promote the value poets bring to our culture. Through its prize program, the organization annually awards more funds to individual poets than any other organization, giving a total of $1,250,000 to more than 200 poets at various stages of their careers. This year, in response to the global health crisis, the Academy launched the #ShelterInPoems initiative, inviting members of the public to select poems of comfort and courage from its online collection to share with others on social media. The initiative culminated in the organization’s first-ever virtual reading, which was watched more than 25,000 times by viewers in more than 40 countries around the world. The Academy is also one of seven national organizations that comprise Artist Relief, a multidisciplinary coalition of arts grantmakers and a consortium of foundations working to provide resources and funding to the country’s individual poets, writers, and artists who are impacted by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

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