Two Women Elected to the Board of the Academy of American Poets

The Academy of American Poets has selected three new members to its board of chancellors. The board selects winners of the academy’s awards and fellowships and serves as ambassadors of poetry to the world at large. Two of the three new board members are women.

Toi Derricotte is a professor of English in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh. Professor Derricotte is the author of five books of poetry and has published more than 1,000 poems. She is the co-founder of the Cave Canem Foundation, an organization of African American poets.

Professor Derricotte is a graduate of Wayne State University in Detroit. She earned a master’s degree in English literature and creative writing from New York University.

Jane Hirshfield is the author of seven books of poetry and several other works. Hirshfield has taught at Bennington College, the University of California at Berkeley and the University of San Francisco. She has been a visiting Poet-in-Residence at Duke University, the University of Alaska, the University of Virginia, and the University of Cincinnati.

Hirshfield was a member of the first class at Princeton University to include women. She then went on to study at the San Francisco Zen Center.