The Poetry Foundation's new e-book Blueprints: Bringing Poetry into Communities, co-published with the University of Utah Press, includes essays and contributions from poets associated with the University of Iowa, including Robert Hass, Christopher Merrill and Thomas Lux. A project of the Poetry Foundation’s Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute and edited by inaugural director Katharine Coles, the book brings together noted poets and community leaders to discuss the inventive ways they’ve introduced poetry to diverse communities. The essays include tips, program ideas, and successful methods for bringing poetry to people, while the book’s final section draws from the strategies discussed in those essays to offer a flexible toolkit for individuals and organizations interested in bringing poetry into their own communities.

By providing stories from those who have succeeded in bringing poetry to communities and highlighting proven techniques, the book offers readers inspiration, guidance, and confidence, as well as practical tools and strategies. It is available for free download at www.poetryfoundation.org/blueprints. The print book, which will be published in March, will be available for sale at bookstores, through online retailers, or from the University of Utah Press at www.uofupress.com.