Branching Out Poetry for the 21st Century
Poets House and the Poetry Society of America (PSA), two of America's preeminent poetry organizations, have joined together with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to bring Branching Out: Poetry for the 21st Century, to Fresno, Houston, Kansas City, Milwaukee, and New Orleans.
Building on their most successful outreach programs, Poets House and the PSA are working with the public libraries and transit systems of the host cities to present accessible, engaging talks by distinguished poet/scholars about celebrated contemporary and classic poets. The partnerships with public libraries are based on Poets House's award-winning Poetry in The Branches model for developing poetry audiences in community libraries. The partnerships with transit systems are based on the Poetry Society of America's widely successful Poetry in Motion® program.
Branching Out presentations focus on poetic luminaries ranging from Robert Frost to Emily Dickinson, Gwendolyn Brooks to Federico García Lorca, and Elizabeth Bishop to Walt Whitman. The presenters include Elizabeth Alexander, Eavan Boland, Martín Espada, Eamon Grennan, Edward Hirsch, Paul Muldoon, Carl Phillips, Robert Pinsky, Mary Jo Salter, Vijay Seshadri, and Susan Stewart. The talks are explorations of the poet in his or her time and in the tradition of American poetry, and the elements out of which the poems are made.
The presentations are supported and enhanced by the well-loved Poetry in Motion® placards featuring poems and excerpts from the works of the presented poets displayed in the transportation systems of each of the participating cities. Additional support for this aspect of the project was provided by Fresno Area Express; California State University, Fresno; the Houston Endowment Inc; Inprint (Houston); the Greater Milwaukee Foundation's Dorothea C. Mayer Fund; and the Friends of the New Orleans Public Library.
Branching Out in the Transit Systems: The Poetry in Motion® Component:
THE PARTNERS:
Poets House is a 45,000 volume poetry library and lively literary center that provides a locus of discussion and research for writers, students, scholars, and the general public. Its signature program, the Poets House Showcase, is an unparalleled annual exhibit of all the poetry published in the United States. Its online Directory of American Poetry Books is a cumulative, annotated index of all the books that have been in the Showcase (since 1990) and is available, free, at www.poetshouse.org. Poets House's initiative 'Poetry in the Branches' provides a model for working with poetry in community library settings. Through the use of the PITB model, Poets House has trained librarians throughout the United States in poetry collection development, display, and programming.
The Poetry Society of America (PSA) was founded in 1910 to create a public forum for poetry, while working to raise the public's awareness and appreciation of the art. The PSA presents distinguished lectures and readings in the fall and spring, regularly partnering with such organizations as Baruch College, the City University of New York, Cooper Union, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the International Center for Photography, the National Arts Club, The New School, The New York Institute for the Humanities, and Poets House, to bring engaging, accessible, and unique programming into communities across the country. Other important initiatives include the PSA Festival of New American Poets, a biannual two-night event featuring 20 poets (who have published no more than a chapbook or one full-length collection) that the PSA selects as representatives of the very best in contemporary poetry and the PSA Chapbook Fellowship Program, which enables the PSA to publish the manuscripts of four emerging poets each year as selected by four distinguished poets for publication. Poetry in Motion®, the PSA's most visible program, currently reaches over 11 million Americans every day in cities from coast to coast.
The Libraries:
Poetry Branching Out is presented in partnership with the following libraries. Please click on the logos, below, to visit the Web sites of the libraries:
