George Mason University will be the new home for Poetry Daily, a popular daily online anthology that has been promoting poetry since 1997.
The anthology will be published in partnership with the Department of English’sCreative Writing Program and University Libraries. Editors, students and staff at Mason will take on daily production as of Jan. 1, 2019.
Peter Streckfus, associate professor of English, and Sally Keith, professor of English, will take on editorial direction. Aaron McCollough, director of George Mason University Press and the Mason Publishing Group, will serve as associate editor. Founders Don Selby and Diane Boller are retiring after growing Poetry Daily for more than 21 years.
“We’re excited that the team at George Mason will carry Poetry Daily’s mission into the future,” Selby and Boller said in a joint statement. “Their grasp of its past and, equally important, their thoughtful imagination in looking to its future have been inspiring as we have worked together on this transition.”
Selby and Boller will remain involved as members of the board of directors of the Daily Poetry Association, the nonprofit organization that publishes Poetry Daily.
Streckfus said that Mason hopes to expand the daily anthology by finding more diverse voices and publications, featuring more translations and global poetry in English and increasing the open educational resource curricula based on new editorial features.
“The National Endowment for the Arts reports that poetry reading is the highest it’s been in almost a decade and a half, with much of that increase coming from rises in poetry reading among young adults, people of color and women,” said Streckfus.
“Our aim is to bring new, exciting content to the thousands of dedicated readers Poetry Daily has served for 20 years. At the same time, we hope to bring many new readers into contact with the vitality—with the breath and breadth—of contemporary poetry.”
Visit the Mason Creative Writing Program’s website for the full press release.