Racial Equity Work Plan

Published June 2021, updated July 2024

Poetry is vital to language and living. Copper Canyon Press publishes extraordinary poetry from around the world to engage the imaginations and intellects of readers. It is imperative that we address inequities that keep Black and Indigenous community members and other people of color [BIPOC] from engaging fully at all levels of Copper Canyon Press, whether as authors, readers, donors, board, or staff members.

Copper Canyon Press staff and leadership have been majority white, a makeup that does not reflect the diversity of our authors or readership. We take seriously our responsibility—as publishers of poetry books by Black, Indigenous, Asian American, Arab American, Latinx, immigrant, undocumented, multilingual, and multinational writers and translators of the (non-white) global majority, as well as poetry books by white poets in the U.S. and abroad—to be informed about, and actively resist, systemic racism. With the actions in this plan, we seek to build a foundation from which we can do the proactive, intentional, and overdue work of dismantling structural racism in our own house and within our field. We are grateful for BIPOC poets, organizers, and publishing colleagues who have led this work for many decades, and who continue to lead the charge. 

Each of the efforts listed here is part of an urgent and ongoing process toward culture change, and greater equity, inclusion, and access for our brilliant poetry community. 

Our commitment to racial equity and justice includes:

  • An external audit of organizational practices and processes at CCP, provided by data2insight. With the information provided by the audit, we have sought to identify and remove inequitable barriers to employment, publication, participation, and advancement at the Press. The audit examines CCP’s:
    • HR policies including hiring practices, job descriptions, and employment manual
    • Board governance and procedural documents
    • Book list and editorial policies

Read our July 2022 external audit of these practices here: Copper Canyon Press IDEA Report Summary & Recommendations

In addition, the Copper Canyon Press IDEA Task Force has met to review the full results of the data2insight report and will continue to meet and bring recommendations to the Board of Directors for next steps. The employee handbook and job descriptions have been updated.

  • Anti-bias and inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility training and education for all staff and board members. As publishing professionals and patrons of the literary arts, we hold powerful gatekeeping positions. Our organization can only be as antiracist and liberatory as those who run it. Our training includes:
    •  A staff-wide training with poet and consultant Ama Codjoe
    • Outside workshops selected by staffers on an individual level
    • Routine Racial Equity Dialogues and book group discussion
  • Active board recruitment and trustee onboarding. Recognizing the resources and opportunities that BIPOC leaders bring to CCP, we are committed to actively recruiting more BIPOC board members. A new board committee was formed in as of January 2021 to accomplish this goal. We have revised our board position descriptions and member onboarding materials to reflect responsibilities related to inclusion and equity at CCP (i.e. participating in special meetings, training, recruitment efforts, and other board-level change work). 
  • Dedicated funding and program changes to make the Copper Canyon Press internship program more equitable. Many literary professionals begin their careers as interns. The CCP internship program is an immersive experiential learning experience, and offers interns a deepened relationship to poetry, and a professionally-competitive understanding of literary and nonprofit landscapes. We are taking steps to remove systemic barriers to BIPOC participation in the CCP internship program accordingly. Past and present intern cohorts have provided invaluable feedback and activism around intern compensation and other opportunities for greater equity and inclusion. Beginning Spring 2023, we expanded our internship selection team to include one of our BIPOC full-time staff members. In addition, we now offer a $500 per month stipend to help interns with their living expenses while they volunteer at the Press. We will continue to incorporate feedback from our BIPOC staff members in the intern selection process.
  • The launch a new Publishing Fellowship program for BIPOC—and others historically excluded from publishing—who are exploring careers as editors. As we dismantle barriers, we also wish to build new inroads and connections. The Publishing Fellowship program will welcome BIPOC emerging editors to bring skills and expertise to the CCP editorial program while receiving professional development and mentorship from CCP staff. Fellowship program has welcomed BIPOC emerging editors to bring skills and expertise to the CCP editorial program while receiving professional development and mentorship from CCP staff. The first Fellowship was successfully implemented in 2022, ultimately resulting in a full-time staff hire. Subsequent Fellowships have been delayed pending sustainable funding, a primary operational goal.
  • Review and revision of our house style guide toward current and liberatory uses of language. As part of our pressmark revision process in 2022, we created a new Digital Standards Guide that included our new branding materials and assets. We incorporated the language guidance tools we have developed prior to this update within the new standards guide.
  • Revision of our pressmark. Copper Canyon Press staff and board have engaged in complex and honest conversations about the ways that our pressmark and logo impact readers and poets, which has led to the adoption of a new pressmark. We have shared our official pressmark change statement—which includes an account of the original pressmark’s possibility for harm and a detail of the Press’s decision making—can be found on the Press’s website here 
  • Development of a new racial equity decision-making framework to guide all major efforts at CCP. Inspired by RaceForward’s “Equity Prime,” this will consist of a set of questions—adapted specifically for a nonprofit arts organization—that place equity and inclusion at the forefront of organizational decision-making. Copper Canyon Press continues to adapt how this framework can be involved in our organizational decision-making. 

The actions listed above are directly related to our day-to-day operations as a book publisher, employer, and nonprofit literary arts organization. As individual stakeholders, and as an institution, we also hold responsibility within the larger context of country and culture. We commit to:

  • Direct and overt support of the movement for Black lives. As long as the state-sanctioned killing of Black people continues, the Black poets, readers, and colleagues among us do not have equal access to basic levels of safety and wellbeing. Copper Canyon Press continues to seek projects that interact with and give visibility to these realities by way of the diverse perspectives of the poets who experience them.
  • An ongoing intersectional approach to all equity and inclusion work, acknowledging that other forms of oppression—including sexism, transphobia, homophobia, ageism, ableism, xenophobia, and classism—must be addressed at all levels of the organization (in the books we publish, among staff and board, and in CCP’s organizational policies) to achieve a truly antiracist and liberatory vision for change. 

We will update this plan as needed with reports on our progress. If you have comments or questions, please send your message to poetry@coppercanyonpress.org. 

Thank you.

Signed,

Copper Canyon Press Staff & Board