Announcing the 2025 Poets & Writers Get the Word Out Poetry Cohort

Poets & Writers has announced the 2025 poetry cohort for Get the Word Out, a publicity incubator for early career writers. The program gives selected writers an opportunity to work with an experienced book publicist who will guide them in leveraging the opportunity presented by their first or second major book publication.

Each of the ten writers selected has a book forthcoming in 2025 or 2026. They are pictured from top left:

Adedayo Agarau is the author of The Years of Blood, forthcoming from Fordham University Press in 2025 and winner of the Poetic Justice Institute Editor’s Prize for BIPOC writers. A 2024 Ruth Lilly-Rosenberg Fellowship finalist, a Wallace Stegner Fellow ‘25, and a Cave Canem Fellow, he is the editor-in-chief of Agbowó Magazine, a journal of African literature and art, and a poetry reviews editor for the Rumpus. He is also the author of the chapbooks Origin of Name (African Poetry Book Fund, 2020) and The Arrival of Rain (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, 2020). 

Genevieve DeGuzman is the author of Karaoke at the End of the World, forthcoming from JackLeg Press in 2026. An Oregon Literary Fellow and an Alice James Award finalist, she has earned several Best New Poets nominations and has been featured in the Poetry Moves project for the Pacific Northwest’s C-TRAN transit system and in Oregon ArtsWatch, and her work has appeared in the Adroit Journal, Nimrod, phoebe, RHINO, and elsewhere. The recipient of fellowships and grants from the Oregon Arts Commission, PEN America, Literary Arts, Vermont Studio Center, and Can Serrat, among others, DeGuzman was born in the Philippines, grew up near San Diego, and currently lives in Portland, Oregon. 

Isabella DeSendi is a Latina poet and educator whose work has been published in Poetry, the Adroit Journal, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere. Her debut poetry collection, Someone Else’s Hunger, is forthcoming from Four Way Books in 2025. Her chapbook, Through the New Body, won the Poetry Society of America’s 2019 Chapbook Fellowship. She has received an Individual Artist Fellowship from New Jersey State Council on the Arts and an Open Door Career Advancement Grant from Poets & Writers. She holds an MFA from Columbia University and currently lives in Hoboken, New Jersey. 

Alison Lubar teaches literature by day and yoga by night. They are a queer, nonbinary, Nikkei femme whose life work has evolved into bringing mindfulness practices to young people. They are the author of two full-length poetry books, including The Other Tree, winner of Harbor Editions’ 2023 Laureate Prize and forthcoming from Harbor Editions in 2025, and METAMOURPHOSIS (fifth wheel press, 2024), as well as four chapbooks: Philosophers Know Nothing About Love (Thirty West, 2022), queer feast (Bottlecap Press, 2022), sweet euphemism (CLASH!, 2023), and It Skips a Generation (Stanchion, 2023).  

Nick Martino is a poet and teacher from Milwaukee. His debut poetry collection, Scrap Book, won the 2024 Alice James Editors’ Choice Award and will be published in 2026. His poems have been published in Best New Poets, Narrative, Ninth Letter, the Boston Review, the Southern Review, and elsewhere. A finalist for the 2024 Sewanee Review Poetry Prize, he holds an MFA from the University of California, Irvine where he received the 2022 Excellence in Poetry Prize. He lives in LA. 

Yamini Pathak is the author of poetry chapbooks, Atlas of Lost Places (Milk and Cake Press, 2020) and Breath Fire Water Song (Ghost City Press, 2021). She has an MFA in poetry from Antioch University, has served as a Dodge Foundation poet in schools, and is an editor with Bull City Press. A recipient of an Individual Artist Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, her work has been nominated for Best New Poets by SWWIM and has been a finalist for Frontier Poetry’s Global Poetry Prize (South Asia). Her poetry collection Her Mouth a Palace of Lamps is forthcoming from Milk & Cake Press in October 2025.  

m. mick powell is a queer Black Cabo Verdean femme, poet, artist, Aries, and the author of Dead Girl Cameo, forthcoming from One World in August 2025. They are an assistant professor of gender and sexuality studies at the University of Connecticut. A 2023 Tin House Resident and 2024 Torch Literary Arts fellow, mick enjoys spending time with cats, chasing waterfalls, and being in love. 

Maya Salameh is the author of Mermaid Theory, forthcoming from Haymarket Books in 2026; How To Make An Algorithm In The Microwave (University of Arkansas Press, 2022), winner of the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize; and the chapbook rooh (Paper Nautilus Press, 2020). She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference, and the President’s Committee for the Arts and Humanities, and served as a National Student Poet, America’s highest honor for youth poets. Her work has appeared in the Offing, Poetry, Gulf Coast, the Rumpus, AGNI, Mizna, the Los Angeles Times, and elsewhere.

Kelsey L. Smoot, who uses they/them or he/him pronouns, is a poet, advocate, and frequent writer of critical analysis, and a full-time PhD student in the interdisciplinary social sciences and humanities at the College of William & Mary. The winner of the Sad Girls Club’s spring 2021 literary contest and the Good Life Review’s 2023 Honeybee Prize, he is the Grand Prize winner of the 2024 Button Poetry Video Contest, a Pushcart Prize nominee, and a Best of the Net nominee. Proudly, Kelsey is the author of the chapbooks we was bois together (CLASH!, 2024) and Muse (Another New Calligraphy, 2024). His poetry collection SOULMATE AS A VERB is forthcoming from DOPAMINE/Semiotext(e) in February 2026.  

Bernardo Wade, born and raised in New Orleans, tries at poems, catches elbows on the court, wanders around the Bay—occasionally on Stanford’s campus as a Wallace Stegner fellow. Previously the editor of Indiana Review, he now serves as assistant editor and poetry editor for Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora. Though he has published in a bunch of literary journals no one in his family has ever heard of, they remain proud of him, especially when they are featured in the poems. His debut poetry collection, A Love Tap, is forthcoming from Lookout Books in October. 

Get the Word Out participants will work closely with a publicist over several months to learn, develop, and execute strategies that will help them maximize the exposure of their forthcoming poetry collections. They will also take part in seminars with media and events professionals, as well as established authors who will speak to their own experience and strategies for book promotion.