The Academy of American Poets is honored to announce that Poem-a-Day, the organization’s daily digital poetry series featuring previously unpublished work by today’s poets, is the number one source of selected work for the 2021 edition of Best American Poetry (Simon & Schuster, 2021). This is the second time it has been the top source of poems for the anthology; the first time was in 2019. Poem-a-Day features new poems by more than 250 living poets each year and is now distributed to 300,000+ subscribers who receive the email version of the series. It reaches an additional audience of 500,000+ daily through Poets.org and social media. Because of its unique reach, Poem-a-Day is one of the largest platforms in the United States for a poet to share new work and promote their books.
Congratulations to the following poets whose work was selected from Poem-a-Day and the Academy of American Poets by former U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith to be featured in the 2021 edition of the Best American Poetry anthology, and to the guest editors who help make the Poem-a-Day program possible:
“Some Call It God” by Jabari Asim
“lake loop” by Natalie Diaz
“a brief meditation on breath” by Yesenia Montilla
“When White Hawks Come” by dg nanouk okpik
“For Black Children at the End of the World—and the Beginning” by Roger Reeves
“women’s voting rights at one hundred (but who’s counting?)” by Evie Shockley
“Ode to the Boy Who Jumped Me” by Monica Sok
“Red Wine Spills” by L. Ash Williams
To read the eight selected poems, visit: https://poets.org/anthology/best-american-poetry-poem-day-2021