The Poetry Foundation announced the inaugural project of the Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute (HMPI), a project that will develop a set of “best practices” for implementing and elevating the profile of poetry through new-media platforms. The HMPI will invite poets, publishers, and media law and technology experts to probe the spread and presence of poetry across new-media, “with the aim of forging recommendations that both protect the intellectual property of poets and publishers and ensure a vigorous presence for poetry in all its forms on all available outlets.” At the project’s core are the interests and needs of poets and publishers and their audiences, and a dedication to the needs of poetry as an art form.
Katharine Coles, poet laureate of Utah, former head of the creative writing program at the University of Utah, and founding director of the Utah Symposium in Science and Literature, will direct the institute. Other members include: Michael Collier, poet, professor, and poetry editor for Houghton Mifflin; Wyn Cooper, poet and lyricist; Rita Dove, poet, playwright, professor, and former U.S. poet laureate; Cornelius Eady, poet, professor, playwright, and co-founder of Cave Canem; David Fenza, executive director of the Association of Writers & Writing Programs; Kate Gale, editor, writer, and founder and managing editor of Red Hen Press; Kimiko Hahn, poet and professor; Lewis Hyde, poet, essayist, professor, and MacArthur Fellow; Fiona McCrae, publisher and executive director of Graywolf Press; Robert Pinsky, poet, critic, professor, translator, editor, and former U.S. poet laureate; Claudia Rankine, poet, playwright, and professor; Alberto Ríos, poet and professor; Don Selby, co-founder of the Poetry Daily website; Rick Stevens, computer scientist and professor; Jennifer Urban, director of the Intellectual Property and Technology Law Clinic at the University of Southern California; and Monica Youn, poet and counsel in the Democracy Program of the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of Law.