THE NATIONAL YOUTH POET LAUREATE PROGRAM IS AN INITIATIVE OF URBAN WORD, AN AWARD-WINNING YOUTH LITERARY ARTS AND YOUTH DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATION, IN COLLABORATION WITH LOCAL YOUTH LITERARY ARTS ORGANIZATIONS ACROSS THE COUNTRY; AND CHAMPIONED BY THE LEADING NATIONAL LITERARY AND ARTS ORGANIZATIONS, INCLUDING THE PRESIDENT’S COMMITTEE ON THE ARTS & THE HUMANITIES, THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, ACADEMY OF AMERICAN POETS, POETRY SOCIETY OF AMERICA, PEN CENTER USA, AND CAVE CANEM.

Urban Word, a founding member of the Poetry Coalition, is accepting applications for a paid Poetry Coalition Fellowship position. This position is 20 hours per week from September 5, 2022 to June 30, 2023. The stipend is $18,720 plus $1,000 toward health care.

The Poetry Coalition is a national alliance of more than 25 organizations dedicated to working together to promote the value poets bring to our culture and the important contribution poetry makes in the lives of people of all ages and backgrounds. Members are nonprofit organizations whose primary mission is to promote poets and poetry, and/or multi-genre literary organizations that serve disabled poets and poets of specific racial, ethnic, or gender identities, backgrounds, or communities. All members present poets at live events. All members present poets at live events. Each March, members present programming across the country on a theme of social importance. The Poetry Coalition is coordinated by the Academy of American Poets and we are grateful to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for its support of this work.

The Poetry Coalition Fellowship Program is a three-year pilot program. The goals of this are to help:

• diversify the leadership of the nonprofit literary field by encouraging more inclusion of individuals from under-represented communities;
• develop future literary leaders regardless of educational background;
• introduce the individuals who are interested to nonprofit literary arts management, fundraising, programming, and editorial work, providing experiences that will be useful as they seek jobs and inspiring them to consider working in the literary field; and
• increase the capacity of our individual organizations by having additional assistance.

Paid fellowships will not “level the playing field.” Opportunity in our country is not equally distributed across ability, class, ethnic, gender, and racial lines. And we alone cannot erase and undo the biases, barriers, discrimination, and prejudice that exist in our country. But we hope poetry organizations can be out front in building equity and inclusivity in literary arts organizations and spaces.

This position will assist Urban Word with communications including but not limited to social media, email, and creating and sending newsletters. Additionally this position will administer and organize program evaluations to aid the organization in understanding program impacts and areas for growth. This role will also assists with youth programming for the National Youth Poet Laureate Program of Urban Word.

FELLOW RESPONSIBILITIES: 

• Committing to 20 hours per week for the entire ten-month fellowship
  • Including 1 hr weekly virtual staff meetings 
• Adhering to rules and policies of the Urban Word NYC as appropriate 
• Assisting with the following:
• Communications
  • Content production for social media
  • Programming and curating live events, such as poetry readings and workshops
  • Administering program evaluations 

• Assisting with the host organization’s Poetry Coalition joint programming in March 2023
• Attending and participating in meetings
• Attending and participating in monthly Zooms with other Poetry Coalition fellows and Academy staff to foster community, professional development, and create a peer learning group to learn about the following:
• Community outreach
• Marketing and promotion, including materials development
• Grant writing and/or fundraising
• Content production for websites or social media
• Programming and curating live events, such as poetry readings and workshops
• General administration
• Participating in the Poetry Coalition’s fall convening and professional development trainings
• Completing evaluations at the end of the fellowship year
  

FELLOW QUALIFICATIONS: 

• Passion for poetry and familiarity with and/or knowledge of contemporary poets
• Interest in literary arts programming, administration, and management 
• Demonstrated experience in the areas listed above
• Competency with Google suite tools (google forms, google sheets, google docs, etc).
• Competency managing/editing social media sites

Note: We welcome all applicants, including those who are enrolled in or have recently graduated from MFA programs in creative writing. This position comes with a stipend plus healthcare benefits.

TO APPLY: Please submit a cover letter, resume, and 2-3 references to info@urbanwordnyc.org. No calls please.