The Academy of American Poets named newly elected members to its Board of Chancellors in January, including Professor of Creative Writing Ilya Kaminsky and Visiting Professor of Creative Writing Patricia Smith. As Chancellors, Kaminsky and Smith will each serve six-year terms and spend their time consulting with the Academy on artistic matters, judging the organizations’s largest legacy prizes for American poets, and acting as ambassadors of poetry in the world at large.
In announcing Kaminsky and Smith along with new Chancellors Kimiko Hahn and Ed Roberson, Chair of the Board of Chancellors Tess O’Dwyer affirmed their status as “poets extraordinaire” and shared that “All that we publish, program, and promote at the Academy of American Poets is fueled by the collective wisdom, imagination, and expertise of our Chancellors.”
“Ilya Kaminsky is rightfully recognized as a vital voice in the world of poetry and one of the most brilliant poets working today.”
— Kwame Dawes, Academy Chancellor
Photo courtesy Ilya Kaminsky
Kaminsky joined the faculty of Princeton’s Program in Creative Writing in January. He is the author of Deaf Republic and Dancing in Odessa and co-editor and co-translator of many other books, including Ecco Anthology of International Poetry and Dark Elderberry Branch: Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva. Published in 2019 by Graywolf Press, Deaf Republic was The New York Times’ Notable Book for 2019 and was also named Best Book of 2019 by dozens of other publications. Kaminsky’s work has won The Los Angeles Times Book Award, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the National Jewish Book Award, the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Whiting Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Metcalf Award, Lannan Fellowship, Academy of American Poets’ Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and Poetry Magazine‘s Levinson Prize. His work has been shortlisted for the National Book Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, Neustadt International Literature Prize and the T.S. Eliot Prize (UK). His poems have been translated into over 20 languages, and his books have been published in many countries, including Turkey, Iceland, the Netherlands, Germany, Russia, France, Mexico, Macedonia, Romania, Spain, and China, where his poetry was awarded the Yinchuan International Poetry Prize. Kaminsky was selected by BBC as “one of the 12 artists that changed the world.” Kaminsky teaches advanced poetry workshops for undergraduate students in the Program in Creative Writing. His latest poetry collection, Silent City, is slated for release in 2024.
Reflecting on his desire to elect Kaminsky to the board, current Academy Chancellor Kwame Dawes writes: “Ilya Kaminsky is rightfully recognized as a vital voice in the world of poetry and one of the most brilliant poets working today. Kaminsky’s latest book Deaf Republic is a tour de force of poetic imagination and moral force—his is poetry for our moment, and yet, in his work, we sense a more timeless impulse—a reach for something urgent and essential. His poetry makes clear that he is convinced that poetry will have to find a way to speak to the challenging political moments of our lives. And in this regard, he understands something profoundly necessary about what it means to try to be a writer of poems in times of crisis. Above all, the poetry of Ilya Kaminsky is the poetry of a poet who embraces his role as a purveyor of beauty in the world. Kaminsky brings a well-developed and long practiced ambassadorial role to the chancellorship, and his generous knowledge of American poetry today, and his care for American poets and poets the world over will define his tenure on the Academy of American Poets.”
“Patricia Smith is among the most gifted and revered of American poets, whose powerful testimonial art addresses the brutalities of racism, the precarity of Black youth, and the vibrant cultural life of urban communities.”
— Carolyn Forché, Academy Chancellor
Patricia Smith. Photo Credit: Rachel Eliza Griffiths
Smith began teaching in the creative writing program in January 2022 and will join the Princeton faculty as full professor in September 2023. In 2021 she won the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, an award for lifetime achievement from the Poetry Foundation. Smith is the author of nine books of poetry including the latest release, Unshuttered, a collection of dramatic monologues accompanied by 19th-century photos of African Americans; Incendiary Art, winner of the 2018 Kingsley Tufts Award for Poetry, the 2017 LA Times Book Prize, the 2018 NAACP Image Award and finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize; Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah, winner of the Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets; Blood Dazzler, a National Book Award finalist; and three collaborations with award-winning visual artists — Gotta Go, Gotta Flow, with Chicago photographer Michael Abramson, and the books Crowns and Death in the Desert with Sandro Miller. Her other books include the poetry volumes Teahouse of the Almighty, Close to Death, Big Towns Big Talk, and Life According to Motown; the children’s book Janna and the Kings and the history Africans in America, a companion book to the award-winning PBS series. Her work has appeared in Poetry, The Paris Review, The Baffler, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Tin House and in the anthologies Best American Poetry and Best American Essays. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, two Pushcart Prizes, and four individual championships of the National Poetry Slam, among others. At Princeton she has taught both introductory and advanced poetry workshops in addition to an interdisciplinary Princeton Atelier course offered this spring called “How to Find a Missing Black Woman.”
In electing Smith, Academy Chancellor Carolyn Forché says, “Patricia Smith is among the most gifted and revered of American poets, whose powerful testimonial art addresses the brutalities of racism, the precarity of Black youth, and the vibrant cultural life of urban communities. She is a poet of rare formal range, vibrant diction, and dramatic virtuosity. Among her stunning collections, Blood Dazzler is rightfully regarded as a masterpiece of poetic response to historical tragedy. Already recognized for her artistry throughout the world, she will bring to the Academy of American Poets a knowledge of what is at stake in the literary art of our moment.”
Kaminsky and Smith join current poets on the fifteen-member Board of Chancellors, adding to the ranks of 125 distinguished poets that have been elected to this esteemed position in the past. Marilyn Chin, a Visiting Lecturer in Creative Writing and 2022-23 Holmes Poet at Princeton, is currently serving as a Chancellor along with past Princeton faculty member Tracy K. Smith and past Princeton Hodder Fellow Natalie Diaz.
Founded in 1934, the Academy of American Poets is the nation’s leading champion of poets and poetry. Through its prize and fellowship programs, the organization awards more than $1 million each year to deserving poets at various stages of their careers. In addition, the Academy produces Poets.org, organizes the annual National Poetry Month in April and publishes the Poem-a-Day series and American Poets magazine, among other educational and cultural initiatives.
Read the full press release published by the Academy of American poets »
