Saratoga Springs Poet Laureate Wins Academy of American Poets Award
SARATOGA SPRINGS — The Academy of American Poets announced this week it is awarding a combined total of $1.1 million to its 2023 Poet Laureate Fellows.
Joseph Bruchac, earlier this year selected as the first Poet Laureate of Saratoga Springs, is among the 23 recipients across the nation chosen to receive $50,000 each to lead public poetry programs in their respective communities in 2023–24.
Bruchac will work with students at Saratoga Springs schools to create a poetry anthology that draws on Indigenous history, connecting them with Native students at the Akwesasne Mohawk Reservation and the Onondaga Nation School. He will also arrange visits to Saratoga Springs and reservation schools by contemporary Native poets, provide poetry books to students, and bring together Native and non-Native students to read at Saratoga Arts.
Bruchac has authored more than 186 books in several genres and is a member of the Nulhegan Abenaki Nation Elders Council. He is the founder of the Greenfield Review Press, a pioneering publisher of Native American and African writers and bilingual (English/Abenaki) books.
“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,” said Ricardo Maldonado, president and executive director of the Academy, in a statement. “We are inspired by these projects—which include intergenerational workshops, city- and statewide festivals, community-generated publications, and more—that the 23 Fellows will carry out, and grateful to the Mellon Foundation and the nonprofit organizations supporting this life-affirming work.”
Through its Poet Laureate Fellowship program, the Academy of American Poets — a leading financial supporter of poets in the United States — has awarded a total of $5.45 million in fellowships to one hundred and four poets’ laureate since 2019, plus more than $360,000 in matching grants to secure project support from forty-seven local 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations.