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NEWS

POETRY COALITION

FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA FOR FELLOWS


CantoMundo, a founding member of the Poetry Coalition, is accepting applications for a paid Poetry Coalition Fellowship position. This position is 20 hours per week from September 9, 2024 to June 30, 2025. The total stipend is $20,000 plus $1,100 toward health care.


The Poetry Coalition is a national alliance of nearly thirty organizations dedicated to working

together to promote the value poets bring to our culture and the important contribution poetry makes in the lives of people of all ages and backgrounds. Members are nonprofit organizations whose primary mission is to promote poets and poetry, and/or multi-genre literary organizations that serve disabled poets and poets of specific racial, ethnic, or gender identities, backgrounds, or communities. All members present poets at live events. Each year, members present programming across the country on a theme or topic of social importance. The Poetry Coalition is coordinated by the Academy of American Poets and we are grateful to the Mellon Foundation for its support of this

work.


The Poetry Coalition Fellowship Program is a three-year program. The goals of this are to help:

  • diversify the leadership of the nonprofit literary field by encouraging more inclusion of individuals from under-represented communities;

  • develop future literary leaders regardless of educational background;

  • introduce the individuals who are interested to nonprofit literary arts management, fundraising, programming, and editorial work, providing experiences that will be useful as they seek jobs and inspiring them to consider working in the literary field; and

  • increase the capacity of our individual organizations by having additional assistance.


Paid fellowships will not “level the playing field.” Opportunity in our country is not equally distributed across class, ethnic, gender, and racial lines. And we alone cannot erase and undo the biases, barriers, discrimination, and prejudice that exist in our country. But we hope poetry organizations can be out front in building equity and inclusivity in literary arts organizations and spaces.


POETRY COALITION FELLOW | CANTOMUNDO

POSITION DESCRIPTION

HOST ORGANIZATION MISSION: CantoMundo is a national poetry organization that cultivates a community of Latinx poets through workshops, symposia, public readings, and publications. CantoMundo is dedicated to serving Latinx poets and poetry across regional, aesthetic, ethnic, racial, linguistic, and gendered spectrums. Our work is motivated by the understanding that Latinx voices, despite their historic silencing, have always resounded within the chorus of American poetry. CantoMundo is currently housed at the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University.

POSITION OVERVIEW: The Poetry Coalition Fellow will report to and work with the CantoMundo Program Manager to meet the needs of CantoMundo while learning the basics of non-profit programs and management. Work is in-person (Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona) and remote.

FELLOW RESPONSIBILITIES

  • Committing to 20 hours per week for the entire ten-month fellowship

  • Adhering to the rules and policies of CantoMundo/Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing/ASU as appropriate

  • Assisting with any of the following: 

    • Community outreach, including serving as an ambassador for CantoMundo in ASU and surrounding communities

    • Marketing and promotion

    • Internal and external communication, including content production for the website, social media, e-blasts, newsletters, press releases

    • Grant writing and/or fundraising

    • Programming and logistics of virtual and site-specific programs and events, primarily CantoMundo’s annual retreat

    • General administration, including maintaining databases and archives

  • Attending and participating in meetings with other Poetry Coalition fellows and with CantoMundo and Piper Center leaders to foster community, professional development, and create a peer learning group

  • Participate in the Poetry Coalition’s fall convening and professional development trainings

  • Complete an evaluation at the end of the fellowship year

FELLOW QUALIFICATIONS

  • Passion for Latino/a/x poetry and familiarity with and/or knowledge of the poetry community

  • Interest in literary arts programming, administration, and management

  • Demonstrated experience in the areas listed above

Note: We welcome all applicants, including those who are enrolled in or have recently graduated from MFA programs in creative writing. 

TO APPLY: Please submit a cover letter, 1-2-page resume, 2 references, and a 1-page explanation of your interest in Latinx poets and poetry. Please send these as a single PDF document to this CantoMundo Dropbox. Title your document: Poetry Coalition Fellow Application_Your Last Name_Your First Initial. No calls please. Applications accepted through July 3, 2024.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for the position of Poetry Coalition Fellow without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.



CantoMundo and the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing are seeking a candidate with non-profit experience and the desire, vision, and skills to step into the position of Program Manager for CantoMundo. This is a full-time posting at 40 hours per week with full benefits.


Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing, an endowed center for creative writing at Arizona State University (ASU), entered a partnership with CantoMundo, a literary organization founded in 2009 to support Latinx poets and poetry. CantoMundo has been groundbreaking in its support of Latinx poetry and poetry. The Piper Center is committed to supporting, sustaining, and growing CantoMundo’s vision and mission. Applications accepted through May 31, 2024.


DATES: Friday, May 31, 2024, and Saturday, June 1, 2024

TIMES: 7-8:30 pm public readings on both nights, reception following

SITE: Memorial Union Pima Auditorium 230 at ASU Tempe

 

CantoMundo and the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University (ASU) are pleased to announce the 2024 CantoMundo retreat at ASU Tempe Main Campus, May 30-June 2, 2024.

 

Since 2009, CantoMundo, a groundbreaking literary arts organization, has celebrated and supported Latinx poets through its fellowship program and annual retreat. After a pandemic-related hiatus, CantoMundo is returning for its first in-person retreat since 2019; moving forward, it will be housed at the Piper Center at ASU.

 

Featured faculty for the 2024 retreat are nationally recognized and award-winning poets Rodrigo Toscana and Yesenia Montilla. The keynote speaker is acclaimed poet and translator of trans experience Roque Raquel Salas Rivera.

 

Rodrigo Toscano and Yesenia Montilla will read from their work on Friday, May 31, and Saturday, June 1, 2024, respectively. The readings are free and open to the public. 

 

Numerous other Latina/o/x poets from across the country, all current CantoMundo Fellows, will join the featured readers. These poets include: Aldo AmparĂĄn, Diannely Antigua, Oliver Baez Bendorf, MarĂ­a Fernanda, Cristina Correa, Maritza N. Estrada, Aerik Francis, Paul Hlava Ceballos, Antonio LĂłpez, Alexandra Lytton Regalado, Florencia Milito, SebastiĂĄn H. PĂĄramo, Emily PĂ©rez, Gabriel Ramirez, Reyes Ramirez, Kimberly Reyes, Iliana Rocha, Roberto F. Santiago, Michael Torres, Emma Trelles, David Joez Villaverde.

 

Norma Elia CantĂș, Professor in the Humanities at Trinity University (San Antonio) and a CantoMundo Co-Founder and Advisory Board Member, states that when CantoMundo was founded “we imagined a home for Latinx poets and poetry, a place where our voices and our stories would be heard. In gratitude, we go forward, aware of the power of poetry to change lives, to change the world.” CantoMundo Director Jacqueline Balderrama (Clinical Assistant Professor of English at ASU) notes, “There’s so much geographic significance for CantoMundo to have a home in the Southwest and at ASU, which was recently designated a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI).”

 

Rodrigo Toscano is a poet and dialogist based in New Orleans. He is the author of eleven books of poetry. His latest two books are The Cut Point (Counterpath, 2023) and The Charm & The Dread (Fence Books, 2022). His poetry has appeared in over 20 anthologies, including Best American Poetry and Best American Experimental Poetry (BAX). Toscano has received a New York State Fellowship in Poetry. He won the Edwin Markham 2019 prize for poetry. The Charm & The Dread was an honorable mention for the International Best Latino Book Award. Toscano works for the Labor Institute in conjunction with the United Steelworkers, the National Institute for Environmental Health Science, Native American tribes and immigrant groups on educational training projects that involve environmental and labor justice culture transformation.

 

Yesenia Montilla is an Afro-Latina poet and a daughter of immigrants. She received her MFA from Drew University in Poetry and Poetry in translation. She is a CantoMundo graduate fellow and a 2020 New York Foundation for the Arts fellow. Her work has been published in Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, Prairie Schooner, Gulf Coast and in Best of American Poetry 2021 and 2022. Her first collection, The Pink Box, was published by Willow Books. Her second collection, Muse Found in a Colonized Body (Four Way Books), was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award in 2023. She is currently an adjunct professor at The Juilliard School and lives in Harlem N.Y.

 

Roque Raquel Salas Rivera (he/they) is a Puerto Rican poet and translator of trans experience born in MayagĂŒez, Puerto Rico. His honors include being named Poet Laureate of Philadelphia, the Premio Nuevas Voces, and the inaugural Ambroggio Prize. Among his six poetry books are lo terciario/ the tertiary (Noemi Press, 2019), longlisted for the National Book Award and winner of the Lambda Literary Award, and while they sleep (under the bed is another country) (Birds LLC, 2019), which inspired the title for no existe un mundo poshuracĂĄn: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria at the Whitney Museum of American Art. His most recent book, antes que isla es volcĂĄn/ before island is volcano (Beacon Press, 2022), won the Juan Felipe Herrera Best Poetry Book Award and the Premio Campoy-Ada.


The readings are sponsored by the Hawthornden Foundation, Academy of American Poets, Poetry Foundation, University of Arizona Poetry Center, and Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University.

 

For more information, please contact Jacqueline Balderrama at cantomundo@asu.edu. Visit CantoMundo at cantomundo.org and Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at piper.asu.edu.

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