Adrian Matejka will be first Black editor of Poetry magazine

Poetry magazine, one of North America's oldest and most prominent literary publications, will for the first time have a Black editor. Adrian Matejka, an educator, former state laureate of Indiana and prize-winning poet, begins his new job May 16.

“I couldn’t be more humbled or excited to be the new editor of Poetry," Matejka, 50, said in a statement. “The 19-year-old version of me, thumbing through the magazine’s pages with wonder, would have never imagined that he would one day be part of such a vital literary institution.”