DETROIT FREE PRESS AUG 2025

Detroit poet laureate Jessica Care Moore wins $50,000 for community poetry project


KEY POINTS

  • Detroit's Jessica Care Moore is one of 23 poets nationwide awarded a 2025 Poet Laureate Fellowship by the Academy of American Poets.

  • She plans to use the $50,000 grant to launch literacy workshops, create murals with students, and produce an audio poetry chapbook in Detroit.

  • The academy is also providing over $95,000 in matching grants to nonprofits partnering with the fellows on their community projects.

Detroit’s poet laureate, Jessica Care Moore, has been selected as one of 23 poets nationwide to receive a 2025 Poet Laureate Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets.

The prestigious fellowship, supported by the Mellon Foundation, provides $50,000 to each fellow and will fund a range of community-based poetry projects across the country.

Moore will use the fellowship to launch a literacy and storytelling initiative in several Detroit neighborhoods, in partnership with The LOVE Building, featuring intergenerational workshops that engage both longtime and new Detroit residents, according to a city news release. The project will also feature the creation of large-scale murals with local muralists and student artists from Detroit schools, along with the production of an audio poetry chapbook highlighting the city’s diverse voices.

“I am honored to be chosen as a poet laureate fellow this year,” Moore said. “This grant enables me to continue the work of expanding poetry in public spaces in Detroit and placing poems into the hands of the people — where poems belong.”

The academy is also awarding more than $95,000 in matching grants to nonprofit organizations partnering with the fellows. Since its launch in 2019, the fellowship program has invested more than $7.6 million in poets laureate and helped establish over 40 new laureate positions nationwide.

In a statement, Tess O’Dwyer, board chair of the Academy of American Poets, said the organization is “jazzed to champion wide-ranging poetry projects” that bring poetry into everyday spaces, from festivals and murals to prison workshops and public beach readings.

“At a time when more readers are turning to poetry to make sense of the world around us,” she said, “American poets are beacons of free expression, cultural insight and civic engagement.”

More: Detroit's new poet laureate, Jessica Care Moore, vows to celebrate, promote hometown

Moore, an acclaimed poet and activist, is the author of the upcoming children’s book "Your Crown Shines" (Amistad Books/HarperCollins, 2025), as well as "We Want Our Bodies Back" and "The Alphabet Verses the Ghetto." Her accolades include a Kresge Arts Fellowship, a Knight Foundation grant, and awards from the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Charles H. Wright Museum.

City officials, like Mayor Mike Duggan, praised the honor.

“Detroiters are fortunate to have an internationally respected artist like Jessica Care Moore as their Poet Laureate,” Duggan said. "This prestigious fellowship will help her have an even greater impact in the community." 

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