Poets House is delighted to announce the second year of the Emerging Poets Fellowship Program (formerly the Emerging Poets Residency). Funded by a generous grant from the Jerome Foundation, this program assists emerging poets by providing excellent poetry writing instruction and mentoring in the special environment of Poets House's poetry library—with its unique archives and access to far-reaching programs and conversations with poets and poetry audiences. The program aims to deepen participants' artistic practice by offering a robust professional network of poets and literary professionals, including special visits from editors and publishers, who will assist each writer with their artistic development and career.

The program includes weekly writing workshops, mentoring sessions, meetings with guest speakers, free access to Poets House's events and archival resources and culminates in a final group reading. Transportation support is available for participants. The application process is competitive; tuition is free to those accepted into the program.

2013 Emerging Poets

(Click names for bios and a sample of each poets work)
Mahogany Browne, Jessica Elsaesser, Paul Hlava, Rosamond King, Elsbeth Pancrazi, Montana Ray, Andrew Seguin, Xeňa Stanislavovna Semjonová, Purvi Shah, and Ocean Vuong.

2013 Schedule

The 2013 Emerging Poets Fellowship will meet Tuesday evenings, from March 12 to June 4, 2013, skipping March 26, 2013. There will also be a special daylong session on one Saturday (date to be determined). A final public reading will take place on June 4, 2013. Fellows will also meet one–on–one with the workshop leader and distinguished guests at times to be determined. Special visits from editors and publishers will be part of the program. Fellows are encouraged to attend events at Poets House throughout the spring.

2013 Faculty

The 2013 Emerging Poets Fellowship workshop will be taught by poet and teacher Jen Bervin. Distinguished Visiting Faculty will include CAConrad, Cornelius Eady, Ben Lerner, Evie Shockley and Jean Valentine.

Jen Bervin's work brings together text and textile in a practice that encompasses poetry, archival research, artist books, and large-scale art works. Her books include The Gorgeous Nothings (2012), The Dickinson Composites (2010), and The Desert (2008) from Granary Books, and The Silver Book (2010), A Non- Breaking Space (2005), and Nets (2004) from Ugly Duckling Presse. Her work is in more than thirty collections including The J. Paul Getty Museum, The Walker Art Center, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, Stanford University, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, and the British Library. In 2012, she was the Von Hess Visiting Artist at the Borowsky Center for Publication Arts at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, an artist in residence at The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, and an artist in residence at Mills College in Oakland, California. She teaches at Vermont College of Fine Arts and lives in Brooklyn.

CAConrad is the author of A Beautiful Marsupial Afternoon (2012), The Book of Frank (2009), Advanced Elvis Course (2009), Deviant Propulsion (2006), and a collaboration with poet Frank Sherlock titled The City Real & Imagined (2010). The "son of white trash asphyxiation," his childhood included selling cut flowers along the highway for his mother and helping her shoplift. The recipient of a 2011 Pew Fellowship in the Arts, he lives in Philadelphia.

Cornelius Eady is the author of eight books of poetry, including Hardheaded Weather: New and Selected Poems (2008). His second book, Victims of the Latest Dance Craze , won the Lamont Prize from the Academy of American Poets in 1985; in 2001 Brutal Imagination was a finalist for the National Book Award. His work in theater includes the libretto for an opera, "Running Man," which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama in 1999. His play, "Brutal Imagination," won Newsday's Oppenheimer award in 2002. In 1996 Eady co-founded, with writer Toi Derricotte, the Cave Canem summer workshop/retreat for African American poets. He holds the Miller Family Endowed Chair in Literature and Writing at the University of Missouri.

Ben Lerner is the author of three full-length poetry collections, including Mean Free Path (2010); Angle of Yaw (2006), which was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Northern California Book Award; and the sonnet sequence The Lichtenberg Figures (2004). The Lichtenberg Figures won the Hayden Carruth Award, was chosen by Library Journal as one of the year’s 12 best poetry books, and was a Lannan Literary Selection. In 2002, Lerner co-founded, with Deb Klowden, No: a journal of the arts, and he has also served as the poetry editor for Critical Quarterly. Lerner teaches in the MFA Poetry program at Brooklyn College.

Evie Shockley is the author of two books of poetry, the new black (2011) and a half-red sea( 2006), and two chapbooks, 31 words * prose poems (2007) and The Gorgon Goddess (2001). Her critical book, Renegade Poetics: Black Aesthetics and Formal Innovation in African American Poetry (2011) has been supported by fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. She has served as faculty at such writers workshops as the Squaw Valley Community of Writers Poetry Workshop, the Naropa Summer Writing Program, and the North Carolina Writers' Network Summer Residency Program. She teaches African American literature and creative writing at Rutgers University-New Brunswick.

Jean Valentine won the Yale Younger Poets Award for her first book, Dream Barker, in 1965. Her eleventh book of poetry, Break the Glass, was published in 2010. Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems 1965 - 2003 was the winner of the 2004 National Book Award for Poetry. Her translation, with Ilya Kaminsky, of poems by Marina Tsvetaeva, Dark Elderberry Branch, was published in 2012. Valentine was the State Poet of New York from 2008-2010. She received the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets in 2009 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2011. She has taught at Sarah Lawrence College, the Graduate Writing Program of New York University, and Columbia University.

Application Process

Completed applications comprise four components:

1. Application Form (PDF)
2. Narrative Biography
3. Personal Statement
4. Résumé / Curriculum Vitae
5. Work Sample (Due to the number of applications received, we are unable to return any submissions)

All materials must be mailed to:

Emerging Poets Residency
Poets House
10 River Terrace
New York, NY 10282

DEADLINE EXTENDED: Complete applications must be postmarked by December 10, 2012.

Applicants are reviewed by a selection panel comprised of poets as well as Poets House staff. The panel will take into consideration the applicant's creative work and related achievements and financial/personal need.

Accepted applicants will be announced by February 1, 2013.