Meet Our Grantee-Partner: American Poetry Museum
The American Poetry Museum demonstrates the power of poetry in performance and its written form while providing a place to interact with art rather than reflect passively.
Sasa Aakil leading a collage poetry workshop. Photo by Brandon Johnson courtesy of American Poetry Museum.
Mission: American Poetry Museum (APM) is dedicated to celebrating poetry, promoting literacy, fostering meaningful dialogue, encouraging an appreciation for the diversity of the American experience, and educating local, national, and international audiences through the presentation, preservation and interpretation of American poetry.
American Poetry Museum (APM) was founded in 2004 in Washington, DC, by Jon West-Bey. The museum was created to demonstrate the power of poetry in performance and its written form while providing a place to interact with art rather than reflect passively. It showcases poetry from the United States in its full brilliance by promoting work that is as varied as the country’s tapestry, operating on the belief that poetry is a living, vibrant art form around which community can be developed.
APM serves all ages locally in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia (DMV) area through in-person programming, and reaches national and international audiences through select virtual programming. It also partners with organizations to provide and support poetry programming throughout the region.
Community spaces in the DMV area are disappearing due to the effects of gentrification. To counter this, APM provides unrestricted access to those seeking to develop as writers and performers of poetry, allowing them to write, create art, read, perform, receive feedback, hold book release events, and lead poetry-related programming at the Museum. In times when voices are being censored in an unprecedented way, APM upholds the importance of being a place where words create dialogue and not alienation, where poetry can change lives, provide solace, and give people of all ages opportunities for self expression and connection.
Key programs include the following:
- The incubation program, which provides a small cohort of poets a stipend and budget to develop programming.
- Group and individual exhibits that visitors can interact with through writing prompts.
- If All The Trees Were Pens Open Mic, a series of open mics, workshops, and the publication of an anthology that features participants’ work.
- Poetry workshops led by locally situated artists and guest poets.
- The Reuben Jackson Jazz Poetry Set featuring two poets performing alongside a quartet of musicians once a month.
Jon Ozment, Pepe Gonzalez, Kelton Norris, and Antonio Parker of the Reuben Jackson Jazz Poetry Set. Photo by Brandon Johnson courtesy of American Poetry Museum.
APM is a member of the Poetry Foundation's first Sustainable Futures Grants cohort. Receiving multi-year funding through the grant has provided the stability to cover base costs and signature programs, allowing APM to focus fundraising on increasing programming. The grant has led to more opportunities for poets to design programming and receive stipends and budgets while feeling supported in the process.
Connect with American Poetry Museum: