The Academy of American Poets is the preeminent organization in the United States dedicated to the art of poetry.
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The academy was created in 1934 in New York City by Mrs. Marie Bullock with a mission to "support American poets at all stages of their careers and to foster the appreciation of contemporary poetry." In 1936, the Academy was officially incorporated as a non-profit organization. Ms. Bullock was the president of the Academy for the next half a century, running the Academy out of her apartment for thirty of those years. She started the academy after her return from her studies at the Sorbonne in Paris. Returning to America, Ms. Bullock was dismayed at the lack of support for poetry in her home country. Taking advice from friends such as Edwin Arlington Robinson and Joseph Auslander, Ms. Bullock drafted plans and raised funds to create the Academy and help support and nurture the American poet.
There are seven major awards handed out by the Academy and over 200 college awards sponsored at schools across the country. The Academy also runs numerous programs, including Poets.org, the most popular site about poetry on the web; National Poetry Month (April), the largest literary celebration in the world; an array of Awards & Prizes for poets at every stage of their careers; American Poet, a biannual literary journal; the Poets Forum; and the Poetry Audio Archive, which includes hundreds of recorded poetry readings dating back to the early 1960s.
In 2007, it was among over 530 New York City arts and social service institutions to receive part of a $20 million grant from the Carnegie Corporation, which was made possible through a donation by New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg.[1]
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