Found­ed in 2005 by Ted Koos­er, Amer­i­can Life in Poet­ry was a free week­ly col­umn for news­pa­pers and online pub­li­ca­tions that fea­tured a poem by a con­tem­po­rary Amer­i­can poet and a brief intro­duc­tion to the poem writ­ten by the edi­tor. The mis­sion was to pro­mote poet­ry, led by the belief that poet­ry would add val­ue for news­pa­per and online read­ers by doing so. 

Amer­i­can Life in Poet­ry was fund­ed and sup­port­ed by the Poet­ry Foun­da­tion, which works to ampli­fy poet­ry and cel­e­brate poets by fos­ter­ing spaces for all to cre­ate, expe­ri­ence, and share poet­ry. The Eng­lish Depart­ment of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Nebras­­ka-Lin­­coln pro­vid­ed admin­is­tra­tive sup­port and housed the offices of Amer­i­can Life in Poetry.

Edi­tor (2021−2022)

Kwame Dawes is the author of twen­ty-two books of poet­ry and numer­ous oth­er books of fic­tion, crit­i­cism, and essays. His col­lec­tion, Nebras­ka, was pub­lished in 2019. He is Glen­na Luschei Edi­tor of Prairie Schooner and Chancellor’s Pro­fes­sor of Eng­lish at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Nebras­ka. He served as the cura­tor and edi­tor of Amer­i­can Life in Poet­ry from 2021 through its sun­set in Decem­ber 2022.

Assis­tant Edi­tor (2005−2021)

Pat Hemphill Emile is a poet whose work has appeared in Heal­ing the Divide, Amer­i­can Life in Poet­ry, Nebras­ka Pres­ence, and Times of Sor­row, Times of Grace: Writ­ing by Women of the Great Plains, among oth­ers. She taught as a Lec­tur­er in the Depart­ment of Eng­lish at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Nebras­ka-Lin­coln from 1998 until 2008.

Assis­tant Edi­tor (2021−2022)

Mar­guerite L. Har­rold is a poet, teacher, envi­ron­men­tal­ist, and com­mu­ni­ty activist from Chica­go. Her work has been fea­tured in antholo­gies, includ­ing, The Spaces Between Us: Poet­ry, Prose and Art on HIV/AIDS, Anthol­o­gy House: a vision­ary ecol­o­gy project, and The Book of Bad Bet­ties. Her poems and essays have appeared in Obsid­i­an, Chica­go Review, jubi­lat, Anti-Hero­in Chic, RHI­NO, Vinyl Poet­ry and Prose, and oth­er lit­er­ary jour­nals. She is a mem­ber of the Com­mu­ni­ty of Writ­ers, an alum­na of the Bread Loaf Ori­on Envi­ron­men­tal Writer’s Con­fer­ence and a 2021/2022 Hugo House Fellow. 

Grad­u­ate Assis­tant (2022)

Ber Ane­na is a Ugan­dan writer, edi­tor, and per­former. Her poet­ry and prose have been pub­lished in The Atlantic, Adda, The Caine Prize anthol­o­gy, Brit­tle Paper, The Plen­ti­tudes jour­nal, Short Sto­ry Day Africa anthol­o­gy, New Daugh­ters of Africa anthol­o­gy, The Kala­hari Review, among oth­ers. Anena’s debut poet­ry col­lec­tion, A Nation in Labour, was joint win­ner of the Wole Soyin­ka Prize for Lit­er­a­ture in Africa in 2018. She’s a 2021 grad­u­ate of Colum­bia University’s MFA Writ­ing pro­gram and is pur­su­ing a Ph.D. in Cre­ative Writ­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Founder and For­mer Edi­tor (2005−2020)

Ted Koos­er launched Amer­i­can Life in Poet­ry in 2005 in part­ner­ship with the Library of Con­gress and the Poet­ry Foun­da­tion to bring poet­ry back to print. After 15 years and more than 800 columns, Koos­er retired in 2020.

Speak­ing of the achieve­ment of Amer­i­can Life in Poet­ry, Ted Koos­er said,​“I hope our read­ers are not near­ly as wary or even ter­ri­fied of poet­ry as they were before we began show­ing them poems that weren’t prob­lems that had to be solved but were there to enjoy.”