What is the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets?
An organization of men and women who are interested in poetry, who write poetry and/or who are willing to work to make Wisconsin poetry conscious and conscious of its own poets; the organization is formed exclusively for literary and scientific purposes.

Our Mission:
a) To secure fuller recognition of poetry as one of the important forces making for a higher civilization and to create a finer appreciation of poetry by the public at large.
b) To help Wisconsin poets through seminars, criticism and study to perfect their work.
c) To encourage the study of poetry in the schools of the state.

Our History:
1950: The Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets meets for the first time at the Memorial Union in Madison on April 23; its newsletter is named Muse Letter.
1953: WFOP begins promoting student poetry contests.
1956: Northern Spring, the first WFOP anthology, is published.
1960: WFOP becomes a charter member of the National Fellowship of State Poetry Societies, and has contributed several national officers to NFSPS.
1961: Our second anthology, Poems out of Wisconsin II, is published.
1967: WFOP is awarded a grant by the Wisconsin Arts Foundation and Council to publish a five-year anthology, Poems out of Wisconsin III.
1969: August Derleth edits the anthology New Poetry out of Wisconsin.
1972: WFOP receives a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board and the NEA to publish its magazine Hawk and Whippoorwill Recalled.
1975: Silver Anniversary conference in Wausau; pilot poetry programs in the schools and prisons are in place.
1977: WFOP becomes tax-exempt.
1980: A grant is awarded by the Wisconsin Arts Board for Poems out of Wisconsin V.
1985: WFOP receives from the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters the Citation, its highest award.
1986: WFOP assumes publication of the Wisconsin Poets' Calendar.
1997: Grant from the Wisconsin Sesquicentennial Commission for the Sesquicentennial poetry contest; Poetry Page added to Muse Letter.
1999: Wisconsin Poet Laureate project initiated.
2000: 50th Anniversary conference in Green Lake; Muse Prize is the first poetry award made by the WFOP Literary Fund; Ellen Kort named Wisconsin's first Poet Laureate.
2004: Denise Sweet named Wisconsin's second Poet Laureate.