STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
It's a big day for poets and the Academy of American Poets.
TESS O'DWYER: We're funding $1.1 million to 23 poet laureates on wide-ranging projects, and we're also supporting the nonprofit organizations that work with them.
INSKEEP: The academy's Tess O'Dwyer says the fellowship program will award $50,000 to each recipient.
O'DWYER: The idea is to excite the imagination of a community to get involved in poetry and in civic life.
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
In California, one fellow plans to support the restoration of neighborhoods burned by wildfires.
KWEKU ABIMBOLA: I'm Kweku Abimbola, and I am the poet laureate of El Segundo, California.
MARTÍNEZ: His initiative is called "The Land Remembers."
ABIMBOLA: The ultimate goal with this project is to bring more nuanced dialogue toward conversations of climate change and especially in a space like LA, which is unfortunately home to many forest fires.
MARTÍNEZ: And Abimbola would like others to join in.
ABIMBOLA: Oftentimes people view poetry as, like, a singular act or something that is done, you know, kind of by yourself - candlelit room, whatever. But I'm really drawn to this idea of community writing and how to produce a sort of cohesive, creative work. You know, it takes other eyes. It takes inspiration from your colleagues, from your coworkers, from your friends, from other members in the community to get that done.
INSKEEP: In Lansing, Michigan, Ruelaine Stokes will be installing poetry in public spaces.
RUELAINE STOKES: It's a "Poetry Pathways" project. We're going to install poetry lectern signs along walking paths in a really beautiful wetlands - one that's inside the city.
INSKEEP: She's also looking for others to become a part of her world.
STOKES: What I really hope to accomplish is to bring poetry to people in a new way so that people who don't think of themselves as poets, maybe don't think of themselves as writers, will encounter a small poem and just feel enchanted and invited into a conversation about how we relate to nature, how we relate to this Earth.
MARTÍNEZ: So the lesson could be to enjoy poetry, sometimes you just got to look around.
INSKEEP: A quick haiku.
MARTÍNEZ: Ooh. OK.
INSKEEP: Let's enjoy poems. They are exciting to find. And poets are paid.
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