"Pennies for Poetry" Campaign Launched

Academy of American Poets Receives Challenge to Match a One-Million-Penny Gift

November 29—The Academy of American Poets has received a challenge to match a donation of 1 million pennies ($10,000 dollars) before December 31, 2005. The funds will be used to support Poets.org, the Academy’s website, which receives nearly 500,000 unique visitors each month.

“Pennies may be the unit of measure for this campaign, but a great poem is invaluable,” said Tree Swenson, Executive Director of the Academy of American Poets.

Poets.org offers nearly 2,000 poems, over 500 poet biographies, 400 essays and interviews, 150 audio recordings, lesson plans for teachers, a poetry gift shop, discussion forums, poetry news, events, and more. Poets.org is the most popular nonprofit poetry site on the web, according to Alexa.com, the web information service from Amazon.com. In April 2005 (National Poetry Month), Poets.org received 1.15 million visits, 570,000 unique visitors, and 7.5 million page views.

Donations to the campaign can be made online at www.poets.org/pennies. Funds raised through the campaign will help pay permission fees for poems, writers’ fees, software for recording audio clips, and server maintenance.

The Academy of American Poets is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in 1934 to foster appreciation for contemporary poetry and to support American poets at all stages of their careers. Besides Poets.org, the Academy’s programs include National Poetry Month, the Poetry Audio Archive, a prestigious collection of awards and prizes, and readings and events, such as Poetry & The Creative Mind. For more information, visit www.poets.org.

This is a Press Release edition of the Poets.org Newsletter. To remove yourself from the newsletter mailing list, click here.

The Academy of American Poets
584 Broadway, Suite 604
New York, NY 10012
212-274-0343
academy@poets.org