About The Fellowship
Each year, the WPR Creative Fellowship invites poets, writers, artists, composers, and scholars of contemporary poetry to propose creative projects that would benefit from the resources available in the room and to generate new work that further actualizes the Poetry Room's collections.
The Creative Fellow receives a stipend of $4,500 and a Harvard Library special borrower’s card, as well as in-depth research support from the WPR curatorial staff. During certain years, additional WPR Creative Grants have been made available at the discretion of the fellowship committee.
The next deadline for application is February 15, 2021. There is no application fee. Guidelines are available below.
Woodberry Poetry Room Creative Fellowships are generously funded by the Dr. Michael & Teresa Anagnostopoulos Fund.
Apply

Applicants for the WPR Creative Fellowship will be asked to provide:
- a project description
- a curriculum vitae
- a work sample
- one letter of reference
Guidelines and submission forms are available via Submittable.
In conjunction with the Poetry Room's 90th Anniversary (in 2021-2022), this year's fellowship program is encouraging proposals for projects that relate to the library's nine-decade history. Ninetieth-anniversary projects might include:
- a short documentary or arts film
- a multimedia project or performance piece that reimagines the concept of "a library of voices”
- an artistic installation that engages with Alvar Aalto's designs or the views over Harvard Yard
- a series of poems or essays that are in dialogue with some of the writers, poetic works, literary and sociopolitical movements, and/or technological innovations with which the Poetry Room has intersected and engaged over the course of the last century.
Deadline
The next deadline for application is February 15, 2021. All applicants and recipients will be notified by May 1, 2021.
Covid-19 Update
Due to the evolving nature of Covid-19, we ask that all applicants include a plan for how their proposed project could be undertaken and fulfilled virtually, if the physical library remains closed for some (or all) of the upcoming academic year.