Open Letter of Commitment to Our Community
Note: The following statements were prepared concurrently by staff and trustees with the sense of urgency that this moment calls for, and with the shared spirit of moving the Poetry Foundation forward, together.
From the Board of Directors
We are proud of the staff and would like for them to speak directly to our constituents.
From the Staff of the Poetry Foundation & Poetry Magazine
Our community has called on us to listen, act, and do better. We acknowledge the pain and destruction caused by the policing and systemic oppression of Black lives. We must say their names because Black Lives Matter: George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, James Scurlock, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, Atatiana Jefferson, Bettie Jones, David McAtee, Tony McDade, Laquan McDonald, and countless others who have been killed. Their lives are a fraction of Black lives affected.
To our community of contributors, subscribers, partners, and visitors which includes, but is not limited to, Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Middle Eastern, Asian, trans, non-binary, and queer people, undocumented and other immigrants, people with disabilities, and those struggling financially: we apologize for our silence in the face of crisis amid the call to dismantle institutional racism.
We wish to express our deep gratitude and reverence to the authors of the community letter, to every person who signed in support, and to those who have spoken up in the past. Through our acceptance of institutional silence to questions and concerns raised, we have let you down.
We acknowledge that we are predominantly white, and occupy other privileged identities. We also acknowledge that working at the Poetry Foundation is an extraordinary responsibility. We believe it is our duty to better serve the poets who entrust us with their work, creative or otherwise, and serve audiences who find solace, joy, insight, catalysts for change, and more in poetry.
We pledge ongoing action in response to the call to dismantle white supremacy. We will hold ourselves accountable today with immediate actions, outlined below, and will move forward with the long-term equity efforts laid out by trustees.
Immediate Actions Include:
- The board has approved a minimum of $1 million of funding over the next two years. This support includes an immediate donation of $250,000 to the Artist Relief fund to aid individual poets and writers. The remaining will go to organizations fighting for social justice, and working to advance racial equity in poetry and affiliated art.
- Redirecting resources to develop and implement ways for audiences who have primarily engaged with the Community and Foundation Relations Department programs to be welcomed into and find meaningful content across all editorial and program areas.
- Seeking to partner with an individual or team of Black historian(s) to research and document the debt that the Poetry Foundation and Poetry magazine owes to Black poets in extensive detail. This history will be housed on the Foundation website, be made freely available, and be the first in a series of efforts made to acknowledge, and document, contributions by other artists—not limited to Indigenous poets, Latinx poets, trans and queer poets, poets with disabilities, poets of color writ large, and artists struggling financially—who have enriched poetry that has appeared (or has not appeared) in the magazine, and have been part of content disseminated in other Foundation platforms, programs, and events.
- Researching important out-of-print books by Black poets and the archives of Black presses, in partnership with Black organizations, scholars, publishers, and writers. It is our obligation to help preserve literature by Black poets while also facilitating the work of future artists. The Poetry Foundation will work to create a long-term, sustainable initiative, led by Black artists, to act on this goal.
- Reassessing our building policies and physical space, magazine editorial decisions, digital programs, and programmatic decisions across all departments of the Poetry Foundation.
- Calling on senior leadership and trustees to donate to local, grassroots organizations fighting for social justice.
- Publishing a list of resources of local action groups and funds, and amplifying social justice efforts by poets, on our website and social channels with input from the community.
From the Board of Directors
We acknowledge that, as board members, we must do more to examine whether the Foundation is a welcoming place for staff and all of our constituents. We have not provided a conduit for Poetry Foundation staff and the poetry community to provide critical feedback. That will change.
We commit to begin an immediate process that reevaluates all aspects of the Foundation. We will work to further institutionalize equitable policies that center the humanity of people – poets, readers, visitors to the building, poetry audiences that engage with our programs in Chicago and around the world, programming partners, grantees, and staff. We will work to further institutionalize policies that acknowledge and honor the roles played by Black people, Latinx, Indigenous people, other people of color, people with disabilities, and the LGBTQ community. This will start with an equity audit of all Foundation policies, practices, and structures. We hope members of the poetry community will choose to participate in this process. This audit will be comprehensive, transparent, and take time to reshape the structure and culture of the Foundation so as to create a broadly welcoming environment. A strategic planning process between the board and the staff will follow this audit.
Ahead of this audit, we have formed the Equity Oversight committee to begin the process. Working with the Foundation staff, this committee will recommend to the board changes in practices and programming, and grantmaking that can be quickly implemented to better serve poets and audiences in a more equitable manner.
Finally, when we launch a leadership search, we will be seeking to develop a broad and diverse applicant pool of candidates who share a deep commitment to diversity, equity, and building a culture of inclusion as well as the expansion and enhancement of poetry.
Here are some answers to FAQs about our commitment.
Read the Update on Our Open Letter of Commitment to Our Community, published in November 2020.