Las Vegas is home to many organizations dedicated to preserving and archiving poetry. Rated 4, 2 (The Las Vegas Poets Organization) is the largest and oldest nonprofit poetry organization in the city and Nevada. To learn more about their mission, visit their website. The Favorite Poem project is an effort to celebrate, document, and promote the role of poetry in the lives of Americans, as well as strengthen communities through the art of poetry.
Founded in 1934, the Academy of American Poets is the country's largest literary organization and works to support American poets at all stages of their careers and to encourage an appreciation for contemporary poetry. The conversations hosted by the Las Vegas Poets Organization address a variety of topics, such as land use in the desert near Las Vegas and issues of identity and personal narrative. The University of Arizona Poetry Center is a living archive, founded in 1960 to maintain and appreciate the spirit of poetry, and promotes a diverse and robust literary culture that serves a local and global spectrum of writers, readers, and new audiences of poetry and literary arts. Get Lit is a literary and performing arts organization that merges classical and oral poetry to increase adolescent literacy and train enthusiastic students who are encouraged to inspire social awareness in diverse communities.
Led by professional Las Vegas poets, each free workshop for all ages is designed to bring together the visual and literary arts. The Poetry Center sponsors numerous university and community programs, including readings and conferences, classes and workshops, discussion groups, symposiums, residencies for writers, poets in schools, poets in prisons, competitions, exhibitions, and online resources. This includes standards-based poetry curricula. Founded in Milwaukee in 1979 as a forum and resource center for poets and other artists from the Great Lakes region, the Woodland Pattern Book Center is committed to discovering, cultivating, and presenting poetry, independent literature, and the arts.
These organizations provide resources for poets at all stages of their careers as well as opportunities for community members to engage with poetry. Through their efforts to promote literacy, social awareness, appreciation for contemporary poetry, and more, these organizations are helping to ensure that poetry remains an important part of our culture.
