University of Wisconsin-Whitewater associate professor, Fort Atkinson resident, and Wisconsin’s 2023 poet laureate Nicholas Gulig is among 23 poet laureate fellows who will each be receiving $50,000 to lead public poetry programs in their respective communities, according to information released Tuesday by the Academy of American Poets.

The New York-based organization announced that it will be distributing $1.1 million towards the promotion of poetry, with those programs undergoing development between 2023 and 2024.

“The Academy of American Poets celebrates the unique position poets laureate occupy at state and local levels, elevating the possibilities poetry can bring to community conversations and reminding us that our national spirit can be nourished by the power of the written and spoken word,” Ricardo Maldonado, president and executive director of the academy, was quoted as saying in the release.

Programs to be undertaken by poets laureate include intergenerational workshops, city- and statewide festivals, and community-generated publications, among others, the release noted.

Through its Poet Laureate Fellowship program, the academy has awarded $5.45 million in fellowships to 104 poets laureate since 2019 and more than $360,000 in matching grants to help foster project support from 47 local nonprofit organizations, the release noted.

The fellowships are made possible by the Mellon Foundation, which awarded the academy two grants to fund the program, the release stated.

A full list of the 2023 poet laureate fellows and the communities they serve includes: Diannely Antigua (Portsmouth, NH), Lisa Bickmore (Utah), Jennifer Bartell Boykin (Columbia, SC), Joseph Bruchac (Saratoga Springs, NY), Lauren Camp (New Mexico), Laura Da’ (Redmond, WA), Oliver de la Paz (Worcester, MA), Farnaz Fatemi (Santa Cruz County, CA), Nicholas Gulig (Fort Atkinson, WI), Peter J. Harris and Carla Rachel Sameth (Altadena, CA), Taylor Johnson (Takoma Park, MD), Yalie Saweda Kamara (Cincinnati, OH), Brandy Nālani McDougall (Hawaiʻi), Gloria Muñoz (St. Petersburg, FL), Sharon Kennedy-Nolle (Sullivan County, NY), Shin Yu Pai (Seattle, WA), Willie Perdomo (New York), Jason Magabo Perez (San Diego, CA), Glenis Redmond (Greenville, SC), Erin Elizabeth Smith (Oak Ridge, TN), Junious Ward (Charlotte, NC), and Joaquín Zihuatanejo (Dallas, TX). 

The release included information about each fellow’s project.

According to the release, Gulig’s project, titled: “The Lake,” is a recreation of Wisconsin poet Lorine Niedecker’s trip around Lake Superior. It will be produced as a short film by PBS Wisconsin and included in an interactive map that can be used as a teaching resource.

Incorporating lessons on the history of the region, climate change research, and examples of Indigenous art related to Lake Superior, the map will help inspire students to write their own poems about local bodies of water.

In partnership with the Friends of Lorine Niedecker, Gulig will also spearhead an annual competition to celebrate these poems and have them read at an annual festival.

Gulig is a Thai American poet and the author of several collections. He also is a 2011 Fulbright Fellow.

The full press release, including a description of projects which will be undertaken by the 23 poets laureate, is here: https://poets.org/academy-american-poets-announces-2023-poets-laureate-fellows?fbclid=IwAR0L0d3nTe6gxJHyS59EL2Z2z50Tey5rskb24OLXgQO3Yqu6HC7INtJlvUg.

An earlier story about Gulig and his selection as Wisconsin’s poet laureate is here: https://fortatkinsononline.com/fort-resident-uw-whitewater-associate-professor-named-wisconsin-poet-laureate/. 

About the Academy of American Poets  

According to the release, the Academy of American Poets was founded in 1934, the Academy of American Poets is the United States’ leading champion of poets and poetry with supporters in all fifty states and beyond. The organization annually awards more than $1.3 million to more than two hundred poets at various stages of their careers through its prize program, which includes the Poet Laureate Fellowships. The organization also produces Poets.org, the world’s largest publicly funded website for poets and poetry; established and organizes National Poetry Month each April; publishes the popular Poem-a-Day series and American Poets magazine; provides free resources to K–12 educators, including the award-winning weekly Teach This Poem series; hosts an annual series of poetry readings and special events; and coordinates a national Poetry Coalition that promotes the value poets bring to our culture. To learn more about the Academy of American Poets, visit: https://poets.org.

About The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

According to the release, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is the nation’s largest supporter of the arts and humanities. Since 1969, the foundation has been guided by its core belief that the humanities and arts are essential to human understanding. The foundation believes that the arts and humanities are where we express our complex humanity, and that everyone deserves the beauty, transcendence, and freedom that can be found there. Through its grants, the Mellon Foundation seeks to build just communities enriched by meaning and empowered by critical thinking, where ideas and imagination can thrive. To learn more about the organization, visit its website: mellon.org.