Belonging: Editor’s Discussion, February 2023

Dear Readers,

February is Black History Month, and though the Poetry Foundation highlights works by Black poets in February’s Poem of the Day selections, we work every month to send readers an array of poems as diverse as the poetry community itself. Supporting diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) for the poets represented in our editorial practices and programming is central to the Poetry Foundation’s vision and a guiding principle of the online archive and the Poem of the Day newsletter. In archive commissions, additions, and other initiatives, we work to make the archive more equitable and representative of the communities of poets and readers we serve.

To celebrate Black poets, this month’s Poem of the Day newsletter highlights works by modern and contemporary poets, including Tongo Eisen-Martin, Ross Gay, Langston Hughes, Wanda Coleman, LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, and William Waring Cuney, among others. Poems such as “Angel,” by Angela Jackson, speak to joy in identity and empowerment of the self; others, such as Haki R. Madhubuti’s “Gwendolyn Brooks: America in the Wintertime,” focus on collectively overcoming struggle. Some poems serve as reminders of loss, such as E. Ethelbert Miller’s “Malcolm X, February 1965,” which commemorates the death of Malcolm X, while others, such as Ross Gay’s “Opera Singer,” thank the universe for its synchronicities. We hope you find ongoing inspiration in the Poem of the Day newsletter and will continue to read and advocate for diversity and inclusion of poets of all identities in your communities. The last letter in the acronym DEIB stands for belonging, and we want the online archive to extend that goal. Our desire is to maintain Harriet Monroe’s open door in the truest spirit of belonging.

Poem and Poet Power,

Robert Eric Shoemaker