Facing a growing deficit, the board of the Academy of American Poets has forced William Wadsworth, its very popular executive director for the last 12 years, to resign, and has leased out half of its SoHo office space as well as laid off eight of its 17 employees. The ouster was controversial and spurred outcries in support of Wadsworth as well as threats to resign from some academy members.
Wadsworth, a poet and former wine store owner, was not only popular, but for many years very effective at marketing the academy and poetry in general. He is credited with raising the profile of the organization; launching the Poets.org Web site; hiring more staff, helping establish National Poetry Month, the wildly successful promotion; and raising the academy's annual budget from about $400,000 to around $3 million.
However, that was in happier fund-raising times. In published reports, Jonathan Galassi, publisher of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, a poet and chairman of the academy board, said Wadsworth was asked to resign after failing for months to resolve a mounting budget shortfall.
According to academy acting director Charles Flowers, the academy is facing a budget deficit of several hundred thousand dollars. "The board has committed to raising $500,000 over the next two years on top of $250,000 they had already committed to raise this year," said Flowers. He said that there has been "no decision" reached about continuing the Poetry Book Club, launched three years ago. The club has about 8,000 members and needs about double that to make money. Flowers said the club was "on life support right now," but said it planned to go ahead with plans for a Poetry Club Web site. "We'll see what happens at the end of our fiscal year in six months." Asked whether academy members have actually resigned over Wadsworth's ouster, Flowers told PW, "Not yet."
He also said that other academy programs, including National Poetry Month, will not be affected. He said Cary Goldstein, formerly with FSG and BN.com, has been named NPM coordinator. He can be reached by e-mail at cgoldstein@poets.org.
