Poet Laureate Georgia Popoff Awarded Academy of American Poets Grant

In her own words...

As the poet laureate of Onondaga County, NY, I have intended to set a model for future

laureates, should the county continue the post. The honor given me in a term of September 2022

through December 2024, recognizes both my artistic work and three decades of literary

citizenship demonstrated by the instruction and programming I have provided in Central New

York (CNY), and to the poetry community in general.

In July 2024, I was one of 22 laureates from throughout the nation to be awarded the Poet

Laureate Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets, which includes up to $15,000 to

implement a community-based program.

I proposed a collaboration with Professor Ricky Pak of the Syracuse University Drama

Department to provide a 12- to 16-week intergenerational workshop, Voices in Verse. This pilot

program will convene elders and youth to create poetry reflecting their lives, both shared

experiences and personal memories, offered at no charge to participants. Learning from

community literary and theater teaching artists, creative work will then be turned into scripts, as

participants also engage in development and staging a dramatic public performance.

I will serve as the coordinating literary teaching artist in collaboration with up to 10

Central NY poets (to be determined). Working in small groups, one-to-one, and the full group,

the poets will facilitate brainstorming for themes, offer related writing prompts and exercises,

and support the participants to develop and revise drafts, one-to-one and in constructive peer

critique workshops. These poems will then be developed for the stage.

Professor Pak will coordinate the theater arts portion of the program, also engaging

students from his department to assist in the staging and production aspects, including how

actors bring language off the page to live in the air. In addition to his teaching, Professor Pak is

the artistic director for the Circle Squared Collective, a theater company that creates new work

though devised theater with Moment Work and has worked in partnership with such prestigious

theater companies as the Center Theater Group, Cornerstone Theater Company, the Los Angeles

Theatre Center, and Tectonic Theater Project.

Outreach, recruitment, and promotion of the workshops and performance will be shared

on the CNY Arts community calendar, the Syracuse City School District, Onondaga County

Public Library network of 22 branches, the YMCA of Central NY’s Writers Voice, the Foster

Grandparent Program, and the Arts and Cultural Leadership Alliance, a consortium of

community arts organizations, among other outlets. Social media will be a part of both the

outreach and announcement of culminating performances at Syracuse Stage, the noted repertory

theater affiliated with the university celebrating its 50 th anniversary, which will also host the

workshops.

Over the course of the 2.5-hour workshops fall 2024 through spring 2025, participants

will start with the blank page and move to the stage, culminating in a free public performance.

We believe Voices in Verse will provide a vital dialogue to deepen relationships and

understanding spanning generations of experience and history. Another element of this proposed

pilot program brings poets who are experienced teaching artists together with university student

assistants, providing experiential learning and mentorship for those students, providing

additional income for both, as well as developing meaningful relationships with the participants.

Syracuse, NY, has a long history as a sanctuary city providing new homes for immigrants

and refugees. It is also a city that has a high level of poverty. Onondaga County includes

Syracuse, suburban communities, and rural towns and villages. We recognize that there is limited

access in the more rural parts of our county to cultural and artistic activity, as well as pockets of

poverty. By including community and cultural centers as the locales for the writing workshops,

we will build cohorts and communication among the participants, later bringing the different

groups together to celebrate their work and their lives in Onondaga County. The opportunity for

multiple voices to come together in developing a stage production based on lived experience

over generations will speak to and on behalf of many.

At the culmination of the program in 2025, the performance will be free and open to the

public. Additionally, the Academy of American Poets has agreed to contribute up to $10,000 to

SU Drama Department to support their in-kind contribution to the program.