• The program, now in its seventh year, will fund fellows’ community projects nationwide that put poetry at the center of individual and collective experiences and community service
   

City of Detroit Poet Laureate jessica Care moore is among 23 poets laureates across America who have been named fellows by the Academy of American Poets to share $1.1 million for community projects.

The Academy, a leading financial supporter of poets in the United States, announced today that it will award $50,000 fellowships to 23 Poets Laureates serving in cities and states across the nation.  The fellowships recognize Poets Laureate for their literary excellence while enabling them to undertake impactful and timely projects that engage their communities through the transformative power of poetry.

In addition, the Academy will provide more than $95,000 total in matching grants to 21 local 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations collaborating with the 2025 fellows on their work.

moore, in partnership with The LOVE Building, will launch a literacy initiative in several neighborhoods across Detroit. Along with teaching artists, she will conduct a series of intergenerational workshops helping to tell the stories of new and native Detroit residents. She also will record and release an audio poetry chapbook connecting the diverse voices of Detroit and collaborate with Detroit muralists to facilitate large murals with student artists from Detroit Schools.

“I am honored to be chosen as a poet laureate fellow this year,” said jessica Moore care. “This grant enables me to c continue the work of expanding poetry in public spaces in Detroit & placing poems into the hands of the people - where poems belong.”

moore is the author of the new children’s book Your Crown Shines (Amistad Books/HarperCollins, 2025). She also is author of several poetry collections, including We Want Our Bodies Back (HarperCollins, 2020) and The Alphabet Verses the Ghetto (Moore Black Press, 2003). She is a Kresge Arts Fellow, a Knights Foundation grant recipient, a recipient of a “Courage” Award from the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the winner of an Alain Locke Award from the Detroit Institute of Arts.

"I am so proud that Detroit is one of the few American cities that has an Official Historian, a Composer Laureate and a Poet Laureate, and I'm glad that our Poet Laureate, jessica Care moore is a force of nature and global icon who loves her city and helps introduce the world to Detroit's excellence,” said Rochelle Riley, director of Detroit Arts, Culture and Entrepreneurship.

"Detroiters are fortunate to have an internationally respected artist like jessica Care moore as their Poet Laureate, and this prestigious fellowship will help her have an even greater impact in the community," said Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan.

The Academy expressed excitement about the variety of programs the fellowships will fund.

“The Academy of American Poets is jazzed to champion wide-ranging poetry projects produced by poets laureate in big cities and small towns alike—all across the country—spanning poetry festivals, anthologies, nooks, and cookbooks to toll-free poetry hotlines, prison workshops, public beach readings, and billboards,” said Tess O’Dwyer, Board Chair of the Academy. “At a time when more readers are turning to poetry to make sense of the world around us, American poets are beacons of free expression, cultural insight, and civic engagement.”

Since 2019, the Academy’s Poet Laureate Fellowship program, which is funded by the Mellon Foundation, has seeded the creation of new laureateship positions across the U.S., with more than 40 laureate positions established since the program’s inception. In total, the Academy has awarded $7.65 million in fellowships to 149 poets laureate, plus more than $540,000 in matching grants to secure project support from 79 local 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations. Throughout the years, fellows’ programs have reached millions of community members and have included: a series of poetry workshops held in prisons and jails in Louisiana; a monthlong poetry festival co-organized with more than twenty community partners in St. Petersburg, FL; poetry readings during National Suicide Prevention Month and a cookbook project connecting poets and chefs in Kansas; a poetry anthology celebrating salmon runs and poets in Washington State; a statewide billboard campaign in Michigan; the creation of new Youth Poet Laureate positions in Lake County, CA, and Milwaukee, WI; and a toll-free poetry hotline for residents of Philadelphia.

The 2025 Poet Laureate Fellows and the communities they serve are Kweku Abimbola (El Segundo, CA), Mateo Acuña (Auburn, WA), Tommy Archuleta (Santa Fe, NM), Esther Belin(Durango, CO), Colin Channer (Rhode Island), Jen Cheng (West Hollywood, CA), Steven Espada Dawson (Madison, WI), Mag Gabbert (Dallas, TX), Nancy Miller Gomez (Santa Cruz County, CA), Salaam Green (Birmingham, AL), Lester Graves Lennon and Sehba Sarwar (Altadena, CA), Jennifer Militello (New Hampshire), jessica Care moore (Detroit, MI), Caridad Moro-Gronlier (Miami, FL), Jennifer Polson Peterson (Hattiesburg, MS), Poetic X(Caddo Parish, LA), Jewel Rodgers (Nebraska), Mattie Quesenberry Smith (Virginia), Ruelaine Stokes (Lansing, MI), Bianca Stone (Vermont), DujieTahat (Seattle, WA), and Raffi Joe Wartanian (Glendale, CA).  

You can learn more about the other 2025 Poet Laureate Fellows and their projects at poets.org/academy-american-poets-awards-1-million-total-23-poet-laureate-fellows-across-united-states.