Announcing the 2022–2023 Emerge—Surface—Be Fellows
The Poetry Project is very pleased to share that out of an especially rigorous pool of over 250 applicants, this year's mentors have selected the following poets as the 2022–2023 cohort of Emerge—Surface—Be Fellows:
Ronaldo V. Wilson will be working with S. Erin Batiste
Evelyn Reilly will be working with sadé powell
Myung Mi Kim will be working with Andrew Smyth
Sawako Nakayasu will be working with Funto Omojola
Simone White will be working with Stine Su Yon An (안수연)
Read more about the Fellows below!
Stine Su Yon An (안수연) is a poet, literary translator, and performer based in New York City. Her poetry and translations have appeared in FENCE, Best American Experimental Writing (BAX) 2018, Electric Literature, The Black Warrior Review, World Literature Today, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in Literary Arts from Brown University and is the recipient of fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center, the Corporation of Yaddo, and the American Literary Translators Association. Her interdisciplinary work explores diasporic poetics, experimental translation, K-pop, and virtual performance. You can find her online @gregorspamsa.
S. Erin Batiste is an interdisciplinary poet and author of the chapbook, Glory to All Fleeting Things. She is a 2022 PEN Emerging Voices Fellow, Toi Derricotte Fellow +Resident at UCROSS, Tin House Debut 40 Writer in Residence, and SWWIM Writer in Residence. Additionally, she has received fellowships and generous support from Cave Canem, PERIPLUS, Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, Rona Jaffe Foundation, Poets & Writers +Reese’s Book Club’s The Readership, Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, The Jerome Foundation, Assets for Artists +MASS MoCA, Crosstown Arts, and Callaloo. Batiste is a reader for The Rumpus and her own Pushcart, Best New Poets, and Best of the Net nominated work has exhibited in New York, and is anthologized and appears internationally in Interim, Meridians, Michigan Quarterly Review, and wildness among other decorated journals. www.sbatistewrites.com
Funto Omojola is a Nigerian American poet, performer, and visual artist based in New York. They are the founding editor of ẹwà, an online literary journal that publishes work exclusively by immigrant writers. They hold an MFA from the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College.
sadé powell is a concrete poet from new york exploring meaning-making through print and paper techniques. inspired by her upbringing, she uses the sonic, kinesthetic, and linguistic elements of her 1940s typewriter to experiment with dissemblance as black feminist poethics. sadé holds a ma in performance studies at nyu tisch. her first-ish chapbook wordtomydead is forthcoming with ugly duckling presse.
Andrew J. Smyth investigates the sociolinguistic, psychosexual, and choreographic registers of dispossession under global capitalism. He received his MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and is currently a doctoral candidate in English at the University of Pennsylvania. His writing has been published in Notes on the School for Temporary Liveness, and he has collaborated on performances with Post Consumer Material. He lives in Brooklyn.
About
The Poetry Project has always been a space that facilitates and values contact and learning between poets from different generations and experiences, and in 2013 we initiated the Emerge—Surface—Be fellowship program to formalize that relationship-centered pedagogical model while providing a unique opportunity to support and uplift emerging NYC-based poets. For the first six years we supported three emerging poets annually, and beginning in 2020–2021 the program grew to supporting five. Fellows are selected by and paired with their own poet mentors, who then work together over the course of nine months to support the Fellow in developing their craft; to explore publication and performance opportunities; and to reflect on the professional and community-based dimensions of a writing life. Ideal Fellows will have a project they are working on or want to embark upon, and feel that they would benefit from guidance and support. Each Fellow will receive an award of $2,500.
In addition to receiving the honorarium and working one-on-one with their mentors, Fellowship also includes access to all Poetry Project events (free workshops, free readings, free publications), and contributing to The Poetry Project's journal, The Recluse. As a culminating event, Fellows read in The Poetry Project's Monday Night or Friday Night Reading Series with introductions made by their mentors. Fellows will be invited to attend gatherings with the Project staff, as well as the other Fellows and mentors. Poetry Project staff and mentors will also work with each Fellow to find other unique opportunities for deepening, sharing, and connecting their poetry to specific goals the Fellows might have.
Applicants that have achieved some measure of local, regional, or national professional recognition will be judged favorably, as will applicants who have been published or had work presented in recognized publications and venues. However, the most important criterion is that an applicant's work shows potential. Therefore, demonstration of a high level of skill and unique stylistic vision will be considered in the decision making process.
Our definition of “emerging” is a writer who has local and perhaps regional recognition and may have national exposure, though not national recognition. As a top limit, an emerging writer has published no more than one full length perfect bound book and no more than three chapbooks (not including self-published work in chapbook form).
The Poetry Project embraces diversity in the broadest sense of the word. This principle is reflected in the choice of mentor-poets and will be reflected in the selection of Fellows.
Emerge—Surface—Be is supported with funds from the Jerome Foundation. The program runs annually from October-June.