Each April, the Academy of American Poets creates and distributes—for free—almost 200,000 copies of the current National Poetry Month posters to U.S. schools, libraries, bookstores, and community centers to help promote the month-long celebration and to increase poetry awareness.

Click on the image for a larger and more detailed version.

2013 Poster Design: Jessica Helfand Sponsors: American Booksellers Association, American Library Association, Dixon Ticonderoga, EBSCO, The New York Times, National Council of Teachers of English, Merriam-Webster, Poetry Foundation, Random House, Scholastic The 2013 poster features the line "Write about your sorrows, you wishes, your passing thoughts, your belief in anything beautiful." from Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet. Download a PDF of the 2013 poster >

Please note that we are unable to ship posters to international recipients.

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	2012 Poster Design: Chin-Yee Lai Sponsors: The New York Times, National Endowment for the Arts, Random House, Inc., Merriam-Webster, EBSCO Publishing, and The Poetry Foundation The 2012 poster features the line "...wait on the wind, catch a scent of salt, call it our life" from U.S. Poet Laureate Philip Levine's poem "Our Valley."
	2011 Poster Design: Stephen Doyle Sponsors: The New York Times, National Endowment for the Arts, Random House, Inc., Merriam-Webster, and The Poetry Foundation The 2011 poster features the line "bright objects hypnotize the mind" from Elizabeth Bishop's poem "A Word with You." Bishop was born February 8, 1911, so we celebrated her centennial in 2011.
	2010 Poster Design: Marian Bantjes Sponsors: The New York Times, National Endowment for the Arts, Random House, Inc., Merriam-Webster, and The Poetry Foundation The 2010 poster features the lines "We make a dwelling in the evening air, / In which being there together is enough." from Wallace Stevens's poem "Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour."
	2009 Poster [SOLD OUT] Design: Paul Sahre Sponsors: The New York Times, National Endowment for the Arts, Random House, Inc., Merriam-Webster, and The Poetry Foundation The 2009 poster features the lines "Do I dare / Disturb the universe?" from T. S. Eliot's poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."
	2008 Poster Design: SpotCo Sponsors: The New York Times, National Endowment for the Arts, Random House, Inc., Merriam-Webster, The Poetry Foundation, and Americans for the Arts The 2008 poster features a line from Jay Wright's poem "The Healing Improvisation of Hair": I carried my life, like a stone, / in a ragged pocket, but I / had a true weaving song, a sly / way with rhythm, a healing tone.
	2007 Poster Design: Christoph Niemann Sponsors: The New York Times, National Endowment for the Arts, Random House, Inc., Merriam-Webster, The Poetry Foundation, and Con Edison The 2007 poster features a line from Walt Whitman's poem "As I Walk These Broad Majestic Days": And our visions, the visions of poets, the most solid announcements of any.
	2006 Poster [SOLD OUT] Design: Number Seventeen, NYC Sponsors: The New York Times, National Endowment for the Arts, Random House, Inc., Merriam-Webster, The Poetry Foundation, and Con Edison
	2005 Poster [SOLD OUT] Design: Chip Kidd Sponsors: Con Edison, Merriam-Webster, The New York Times, National Endowment for the Arts, The Poetry Foundation, and Random House, Inc. The 2005 poster features Emily Dickinson's dress and a quote from her letters: "Nature is a haunted house—but Art—is a house that tries to be haunted."
	2004 Poster [SOLD OUT] Design: Milton Glaser Sponsors: Merriam-Webster, Random House, The New York Times, National Endowment for the Arts, Con Edison, and Scholastic, Inc.
	2003 Poster [SOLD OUT] Design: Betsy Bell Sponsors: Merriam-Webster, Random House, Gale Group, The New York Times, and Scholastic, Inc.
	2002 Poster [SOLD OUT] Photo credits Design: Betsy Bell Sponsors: Merriam-Webster, Random House, Gale Group, The New York Times, United States Postal Service, Scholastic, Inc., and Alfred A. Knopf.
	2001 Poster Design: Betsy Bell Sponsors: Merriam-Webster, The New Yorker, Random House, Gale Group, The New York Times, and Alfred A. Knopf.
	2000 Poster Photo credits Design: Betsy Bell Sponsors: Alfred A. Knopf, The New York Times, Yahoo!, Merriam-Webster, Inc., The Gale Group, and The New Yorker.
	1999 Poster Photo credits Design: Betsy Bell Sponsors: Alfred A. Knopf, The New Yorker, Yahoo!, The Gale Group, and Merriam-Webster, Inc.
	1998 Poster Painting: Jasper Johns, Map (1961). Oil on Canvas, 6'6" x 10'3-1/8" (198.2 x 314.7 cm) © Jasper Johns/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Design: Betsy Bell Sponsors: Gale Research, Yahoo!, Sanford, Inc., The New Yorker, and Alfred A. Knopf.
	1997 Poster Illustration: Edward Koren Design: Jessica Weber Sponsor: Alfred A. Knopf
	1996 Poster Photo: Arthur Tress Design: Michael Ian Kaye Sponsors: Alfred A. Knopf, Viking Penguin, and Farrar, Straus & Giroux
	1999 Magazine Advertisement [NOT FOR SALE] Design: Bennett Book Advertising
	1998 Postcard [NOT FOR SALE] Andrew Carroll, Executive Director of the American Poetry & Literacy (APL) Project on the eve of his coast-to-coast drive to distribute 100,000 books on poetry. Photo & Design: Betsy Bell
	1998 Magazine Advertisement [NOT FOR SALE] Photo: Boris Godunov © William Wegman Quotation: The Poems of Emily Dickinson, Thomas H. Johnson, Ed., Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press Design: Bennett Book Advertising
	1997 Magazine Advertisement [NOT FOR SALE] Photo: Darius Kinsey, from Kinsey, Photographer, by Dave Bohn and Rodolfo Petschek, Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers Design: Betsy Bell