Tar River Poetry Awarded $10,000 NEA grant

GREENVILLE, NC   (Sept. 23, 2004)   —   The National Endowment for the Arts has awarded Tar River Poetry, ECU’s poetry magazine, a $10,000 grant for 2004. The money will be used for production costs, advertising and monetary compensation for contributors.

“It’s a feather in the cap for the university,” said Peter Makuck, founder and editor of the bi-annual magazine. “This NEA award is really frosting on the cake of our 25th anniversary issue and puts the university in very favorable light.”

The award, the Challenge America: Access to the Arts grant, are awarded for projects that use the arts to address key community concerns.

The magazine, which was founded at East Carolina University in 1978, celebrated its silver anniversary this year with a double edition that includes an interview with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Henry Taylor.

Originally constructed of poems and book reviews, the magazine now includes essays on poetry and profiles of poets. The magazine’s audience has expanded to a national level in the last few decades, said Makuck, an ECU English professor.

Since its inception, Makuck has budgeted Tar River Poetry from money from its 700 subscriptions and the English Department.

The grant will allow the magazine to further increase its scope of artist submissions. And, added Makuck, money never hurts morale.

“Poets are happy to see their poetry in a quality journal even if it does pay, but its meaningful for the writers themselves to get a monetary reward,” he said.