Poetry Daily is proud to announce we are the recipient of an award from ArtsFairfax that will partially fund a new initiative, Poetry Alive: Introducing Contemporary Poets to Students at the Fairfax Juvenile Detention Center.
The 2023 program will be implemented in coordination between JDC and Poetry Daily staff and is modeled after the successful pilot program initiated in spring 2022 in partnership with Poetry Daily by the inaugural Fairfax Poet Laureate, Nicole Tong. Read about Nicole Tong’s work on the program in her What Sparks Poetry | Building Community essay on Poetry Daily here.
“JDC students will read contemporary poetry books, study poetic concepts, develop their own poems, and attend a one-hour class session twice a month. The program culminates with a virtual class visit by one of the poets whose work the students have studied and whose life provides a relatable example of how writing might alter one’s world experience,” says Managing Editor Martin Mitchell, who manages all programs and grants initiatives for Poetry Daily. “At the end of the semester, students will receive a chapbook of their work to celebrate and honor their growth.
“Our plan is to build a sustainable, annual poetry teaching program, in which we train local MFA students in collaboration with Fairfax County JDC faculty and serve our local DC Metro community.
“We are so excited to begin our work building local community through poetry in our new home, and to begin this partnership with the Fairfax County JDC faculty, thanks to this beginning help from ArtsFairfax.”
The Poetry Alive grant from ArtsFairfax follows another grant Poetry Daily won in 2022 from the Virginia Arts Council, which funded key improvements to its What Sparks Poetry essay series, making it even more valuable as a free, open educational resource.
Poetry Alive: Introducing Contemporary Poets to Students at the Fairfax Juvenile Detention Center and the improvements to the What Sparks Poetry essay series are part of Poetry Daily’s new mission in making the brightest thinking and writing in poetry accessible to everyone through education, both in Poetry Daily‘s local, physical community, and to its 570,000 readers across the world.
This program is made possible in part by a grant from ArtsFairfax.
