Meet PACYA

I’m excited to help spread the word about a new organization dedicated to promoting poetry for young people: Poetry Advocates for Children & Young Adults or PACYA for short. It’s the brainchild of poet, teacher, and blogger Steven Withrow and includes an advisory board of 17 people (including yours truly). Steven has ambitious plans and has already established a lively blog (“Poetry at Play”), web site, and presence on Facebook. Look for heaps of information including resource booklists, a “Poet of the Week,” a calendar, and related links. There’s even a Suggestion Box, so please chime in.

Poetry at Play: http://poetryadvocates.wordpress.com/

As you’ll seen on the site, PACYA’s goals are BIG!

We are dedicated to:
1. Speaking out for the need to engage with poetry at every age level—and addressing the challenges of doing so.
2. Creating a global online hub for news, reviews, essays, and interviews; learning/scholarly resources; communication and networking; audiovisual archives; collaborative projects; and more.
3. Organizing and promoting readings, awards, workshops, and conferences in North America and internationally.

PACYA has several projects underway, including the development of teaching guides and a comprehensive listing of 2011 titles with commentary and links. I expect great things, so stay tuned!

Image credit: Steven Withrow



Posting by Sylvia M. Vardell © 2011. All rights reserved.