2024-25 Grant Recipients
Bay Area Creative
Reauthoring our Stories/Reauthoring Community
Bay Area Creative provides therapeutic services through spoken word poetry writing groups. The program aims to strengthen existing partnerships and forge new connections through a pioneering intergenerational project. The Foundation funds writing groups for social workers, therapists and teachers in support of the project.
La Mama Experimental Theater Club
Poetry Against Gun Violence
The Foundation is funding a poetry workshop for pre-teens exploring the effects of gun violence on youth. The workshop seeks to create a safe environment for young people to process and express their feelings about a pervasive issue in our society. Through curriculum development during the workshops, La Mama hopes to create a model for poetry prompts and activities that can be used for organizations across the country.
The Exodus Ensemble
Hamlet
The Exodus Ensemble is a trailblazing immersive theater company. Building on their reputation for transforming canonical texts into contemporary, high-octane theatrical events, they are presenting a groundbreaking interpretation of Hamlet. The Foundation is providing support for the development of the project and rehearsal of the production.
Urbanite Arts & Film Festival
3rd Annual Arts & Film Festival
The Urbanite Arts & Film Festival's mission is to foster the next generation of filmmakers who are currently underrepresented in the film industry. Through the exhibition of their art, the festival creates a platform for a diverse range of young artists. The Foundation will provide an honorarium for a prominent poet to be a guest speaker at the event, aiming to increase the visibility of the festival.
Gerard's House
I Miss You, I Love You
The project will utilize poetry to serve the staff and clients of the Gerard House for Grieving Children. Teachers will be trained in how to approach, apply and integrate poetry into grief healing. They will then work with clients in poetry writing workshops. The Foundation is supporting the 10 facilitated workshops for this project. An anthology will be generated from the workshops.
Port Veritas
Poetry Reading Series
Port Veritas runs an accessible, hybrid in-person and online weekly poetry reading series in Portland, Maine. The evenings include open mic, and a showcase for featured poets, as well as a bi-weekly youth poetry slam. The Foundation supports artist stipends for featured poets. The program is led by Portland poet laureate Maya Williams.
Restless Books
Lamentations of Nezahualcoyotl: Nahuatl Poems
Lamentations of Nezahualcoyotl: Nahuatl Poems is a poetry volume recreating the poetry of Aztec ruler/poet/philosopher/warrior Nezahualcoyotl (1402-1472). His poems survive in a variety of codexes compiled by the indigenous people of Mexico as well as others. Given the complex history of historical transmittal, Ilan Stevans, a scholar of Hispanic, American and Jewish cultures "retells" 16 of his poems. The Foundation is funding the publication of the volume.
SOMOS
Taos Poet Laureate Program
The Society of the Muse of the Southwest (SOMOS) supports and nurtures the literary arts, both oral and written, honoring cultural diversity in the Southwest. SOMOS will run a Poetry with Youth program with funding from the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry.
Reel Fathers
Poetry Outreach - Identity in Ink
Identity in Ink uses poetry as a dynamic catalyst to immerse high school students in a process of self-reflection, dialogue, and creative expression through poetic writing. Special attention is paid to the role played by family, father and a student's own volition. In 2024-2025, Reel Fathers will offer its programming at Capital High, Santa Fe High and The Masters Program.
The Paris Review
Poetry Audiograms
The Paris Review is an award winning quarterly magazine of prose, poetry and art. This program will help develop the poetry audience through digital media, including Instagram reels of poetry contributors reading their work, newsletters that promote engagement with poems, and website posts written by poets.
ArtWorks
Poetry in Schools
Artworks is a program of Partners in Education Foundation for the Santa Fe Public Schools. Since 2013, Artworks has reached over 16,000 students and 400 teachers in 16 different local public schools. During the Poetry Experience, students attend readings by established poets and create their own poems that are meaningful to them. The readings and original poems by the students are related to a specific theme. Many of the students' poems are included in a published anthology.
Prison Writes Initiative
The Prison Writes Initiative is Mississippi’s only liberal arts based educational program for inmates in 13 prisons across the state. Their programs have served all sectors of the Mississippi inmate population: men, women, youth, the elderly and the disabled. After initial support of Poetry Workshops in seven facilities in the Mississippi Delta last year, this year the Foundation will increase it's support to include programming on Death Row and adjacent long-term segregation units at Parchman Farm, Mississippi's largest prison.
New Mexico School of the Arts
The Witter Bynner Poetry Series at NMSA
The Foundation supports a poetry series that will bring poets to the School's Creative Writing and Literature Program throughout the academic year for readings and master classes. The program will be a fully curated poetry series that will benefit the entire NMSA student body as it will be a cross disciplinary course. In addition, NMSA will create the Witter Bynner Poetry library within their larger library.
Santa Fe Girls School
Poetry Workshops
The Foundation funds a Poet-in-Residence program at the Santa Fe Girls School. The school is celebrating 25 years of the program, which was introduced in 2000. Poetry has the ability to empower the young women in the program and help them to find their voices at a time when social pressure is at its peak.
Gavialidae Second Issue
Gavialidae is a print literary periodical published annually. It includes poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction. The Foundation will support poetry in the third issue of the publication.
