Media Partnerships

The Poetry Foundation collaborates with media partners in digital and print publishing, podcasting, radio, social media, and television to reach the public where they are with poetry. These partnerships aim to achieve a more robust presence for poets, poetry, and poetry-related stories.

For more information or to sign up for our press releases, email [email protected].

Poetry Corner

The Poetry Foundation has partnered with the Chicago Reader since 2020 to bring poetry to a local Chicago audience via Poetry Corner. Every other week, the free print and digital publication shares a poem from a Chicago writer, providing emerging local writers with a platform and readers with a chance to engage with new poetry. The poems for this section are selected by acclaimed Chicago poets, with regularly rotating curatorships.

The Slowdown

The Slowdown is a weekday poetry podcast hosted by award-winning poet Major Jackson. Each weekday, Jackson delivers a poem and a brief moment of reflection, offering listeners a different way to experience the world—through poetry. Past hosts include Ada Limòn and Tracy K. Smith.

Produced in partnership with the Poetry Foundation and American Public Media, new episodes of The Slowdown are available every weekday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast platforms.

Listen to a preview and subscribe to the podcast.

Past Partnerships

American Life in Poetry

American Life in Poetry was a free weekly column for newspapers and online publications that featured contemporary American poems selected and introduced by Kwame Dawes and his predecessor, Ted Kooser. Nationally syndicated to millions of readers across the country each week for nearly 18 years, the column was funded by the Poetry Foundation with administrative support provided by the English Department of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Children’s Poetry Programming from HBO

The Poetry Foundation partnered with HBO to produce two specials designed to introduce children to poetry through animation and song. Classical Baby (I’m Grown Up Now): The Poetry Show featured the voice talents of Andy Garcia, John Lithgow, Gwyneth Paltrow, Susan Sarandon, and Jeffrey Wright. The show received an Emmy® for Outstanding Children’s Program in 2008. A Child’s Garden of Poetry featured readings from Claire Danes, Carrie Fisher, Josh Hamilton, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ziggy Marley, Dave Matthews, Natalie Merchant, Julianne Moore, Liam Neeson, and Jeffrey Wright. The show received an Emmy® for Outstanding Children’s Program in 2011. Both shows are available on DVD.

National Public Radio and NPR.org

The Poetry Foundation’s support allowed NPR to produce more stories about poetry on the radio and online and create innovative features. In its “NewsPoet” segment, a poet was invited into the NPR All Things Considered newsroom to see how the show came together and write an original poem about the news. Featured poets included Tracy K. Smith, Craig Morgan Teicher, and Kevin Young.

New York Times Poetry Pairing

In the weekly “Poetry Pairing” series, the Poetry Foundation collaborated with The Learning Network of the New York Times to feature a poem from Poetry magazine or the public domain alongside news content that somehow echoed, extended, or challenged the poem’s themes. 

Ours Poetica

Ours Poetica was a YouTube series that captures the intimate experience of holding a poem in your hands and listening as it is read by a distinctive voice. This partnership between the Complexly and the Poetry Foundation featured poets, writers, artists, and sometimes unexpected—yet familiar—guests who have an interest in poetry. Curators include Charlotte Abotsi, Sarah Kay, and Paige Lewis. 

Watch Ours Poetica.

PBS NewsHour

The Poetry Series, featured on the PBS NewsHour and funded by the Poetry Foundation, engaged a broader audience with poetry through a series of thoughtful, in-depth reports on contemporary poets and poetry. The series included short-form profiles of American poets such as John Ashbery, Lucille Clifton,  Li-Young Lee, Naomi Shihab Nye, and Natasha Trethewey, as well as  long-form segments on current events in poetry, such as a feature on high school students as they prepared for and participated in the Poetry Out Loud national recitation competition.

PoetryNow

PoetryNow was a weekly four-minute radio series that featured some of today’s most accomplished and innovative poets who offered an acoustically rich and reflective look into a single poem.

PoetryNow was produced in partnership with the Poetry Foundation and WFMT Radio Network.