Founded in 1971 by the University of Maine English Professor and Ezra Pound scholar Carroll F. Terrell, the National Poetry Foundation has earned an international reputation for its innovative approach to scholarship in the fields of modern and contemporary poetry and poetics.

The NPF is known for

• its journals, Paideuma and Sagetrieb;
• its substantial collections of works by outstanding poets such as Joanne Kyger, Theodore Enslin, and Kenneth Fearing;
• its “Person & Poet” series, inaugurated in 1979 with Louis Zukofsky: Man & Poet and later including volumes devoted to H.D., Charles Reznikoff, Carl Rakosi, Mina Loy and many others;
• and its regular “decades” conferences, where scholars from around the world congregate to analyze, explore, and debate a particular ten-year period in North American poetry.

Working in close partnership with the University of Maine English Department, the NPF undertook a major new initiative in 1999 with the launch of the New Writing Series, a program of public readings and events that has brought hundreds of today’s most adventurous writers to the UMaine campus (excerpts from the substantial audio-visual archive generated by the New Writing Series are available elsewhere on this site).

The NPF has been directed since 1990 by Burton Hatlen. Sylvester Pollet is the Associate Editor and Joseph Brogunier, Laura Cowan, Steve Evans, and Benjamin Friedlander have served as editors and faculty associates. Betsy Graves Rose is the production specialist for the NPF and Gail Sapiel is the business manager.

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