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The Academy of American Poets is a national, member-supported organization that promotes poets and the art of poetry. The nonprofit organization was incorporated in New York State in 1934. It fosters the readership of poetry through outreach activities such as National Poetry Month, its website Poets.org, the syndicated series Poem-a-Day,〔http://kingfeatures.com/features/columns-a-z/poem-a-day/〕 ''American Poets'' magazine,〔http://www.poets.org/academy-american-poets/programs〕 readings and events, and poetry resources for K-12 educators.〔http://www.edutopia.org/blog/national-poetry-month-teacher-resources-matt-davis〕 In addition, it sponsors a portfolio of seven major poetry awards, of which the first was a fellowship created in 1946 to support a poet and honor "distinguished achievement," and more than 200 prizes for student poets. In 1984, Robert Penn Warren noted that "To have great poets there must be great audiences, Whitman said, to the more or less unheeding ears of American educators. Ambitiously, hopefully, the Academy has undertaken to remedy this plight."〔The quotation from Whitman: 〕 In 1998, Dinitia Smith described the Academy of American Poets as "a venerable body at the symbolic center of the American poetry establishment." In 2013, Carolyn Forché described the Academy of American Poets as "the most important organization in our country helping to keep poetry alive and in our culture." 〔https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzE_Zhucee8〕 ==History== The Academy of American Poets was created in 1934 in New York City by 23-year-old Marie Bullock 〔http://www.poets.org/academy-american-poets/mission-history〕 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 of American Poets was officially incorporated as a nonprofit organization. Marie Bullock was the president of the Academy of American Poets for the next half a century, running the organization out of her apartment for thirty of those years. In 1982, Marie Bullock received a Mayor's Award of Honor for Arts and Culture. She also had received the Gold Medal of the National Institute of Social Sciences, the Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts from the National Institute of Arts and Letters.〔http://www.nytimes.com/1986/12/27/obituaries/marie-bullock-75-founded-and-led-academy-of-poets.html〕 Since its earliest days, the Academy of American Poets has been guided by an honorary Board of Chancellors composed of established and award-winning poets who serve as advisors to the organization and judge its largest prizes for poets. Past Chancellors include W. H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Lucille Clifton, Robert Creeley, Marianne Moore, and Mark Strand. Women as well as men were founding poets of the Academy; for example, Florence Hamilton.〔http://www.usc.edu/libraries/finding_aids/records/finding_aid.php?fa=0110〕 As of 2015, the fifteen Chancellors of the Academy of American Poets are: Elizabeth Alexander, Toi Derricotte, Mark Doty, Linda Gregerson, Juan Felipe Herrera, Jane Hirshfield, Khlaed Mattawa, Marilyn Nelson, Naomi Shihab Nye, Alicia Ostriker, Claudia Rankine, Alberto Rios, Arthur Sze, Anne Waldman, and C.D. Wright. 〔http://www.poets.org/academy-american-poets/chancellors〕 The Academy of American Poets administers several programs: National Poetry Month;〔http://www.poets.org/national-poetry-month/home〕 the website Poets.org, which includes a curated collection of poems and essays about poetry, over 800 recordings and videos of poets dating back to the 1960s, and free materials for K-12 teachers, including lesson plans;〔http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/content-and-e-books/article/61710-poetry-gets-a-hip-new-look.html〕 the syndicated series, Poem-a-Day;〔 and ''American Poets'' magazine. The organization also awards seven major prizes for poets, as well as 200 college awards sponsored at schools across the country. In 1998, Fred Viebahn, husband of African-American poet Rita Dove, drew media attention to the lack of diversity on the Academy's Board of Chancellors; up until then, no poet of color had ever been elected to be a Chancellor, and only very few women.〔 Reprinting of Fred Viebahn's essay from ''International Quarterly'', along with editorial commentary by Charles H. Rowell.〕 Subsequently two female Chancellors, Maxine Kumin and Carolyn Kizer, resigned in protest.〔 The Academy responded by instituting major changes and designating several new chancellors, including African-American poets Lucille Clifton and Yusef Komunyakaa. Elizabeth Kray was hired in 1963 as the first executive director of the Academy of American Poets, and she served the organization until 1981.〔〔http://www.nytimes.com/1987/11/24/obituaries/elizabeth-kray-patron-and-friend-of-poets-and-their-art-dies-at-71.html〕 In 2012, poet and nonprofit administrator Jennifer Benka was named executive director of the Academy of American Poets.〔http://blogs.newschool.edu/news/2012/06/jennifer-banka-to-lead-academy-of-american-poets/#.VKcYvIrF8-I〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Academy of American Poets」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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