National literary arts fund taps Chicago Poetry Center for multiyear award

The Uptown-based Chicago Poetry Center is one of 40 literary arts organizations across the United States set to share $7.7 million in grant money intended to boost support for one of the nation’s most chronically underfunded art forms.

The poetry center, which celebrated its 50th anniversary last year, is a small literary arts organization with an annual budget of about $600,000. The center holds public poetry readings and runs educational programs across Chicago Public Schools.

“We had been thinking it was possible that we were going to have a reduced budget this next year,” said B. Metzger Sampson, the poetry center’s executive director. “But thanks to this Literary Arts Fund grant, along with a few others, we’re actually doing quite well. …”

The Literary Arts Fund, a collaboration between seven philanthropic organizations (including the Chicago-based John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation), launched in 2025 to help support the literary arts.

The arts fund research found that literature is the least-funded artistic discipline in the United States, receiving approximately 2% of $5 billion in annual private foundation grants to the arts, according to 2023 data.

“This is a really, really critical time to receive a grant like this,” Sampson said, highlighting recent cuts from the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.

The arts fund declined to disclose the exact amount of the grant heading to the poetry center, saying only that grants to the 40 recipients ranged from $40,000 to $500,000, with each spread over five years.

The money also comes without strings attached.

The poetry center is the only Chicago-based organization on the list of awardees, selected through a “competitive open call process, with applications reviewed by panels of writers from across the country representing diverse genres and perspectives,” according to the arts fund.