What is the Sealey Challenge?

Goal: read 31 books of poetry in 31 days

When: Every August

Who: Everyone, anywhere

Flexibility: While designed for a book-a-day, many participants adapt it to reading one poem a day or simply read more poetry

reading lists: 2026 (forthcoming),2025, 2024, 2023 

Community: use the hashtag #SealeyChallenge to share "shelfies," celebrate, & give recommendations

Keep track: Download the Sealey Challenge certificate to track the books you read!

giveaways: poetry postcards, sealey challenge bingo prizes, golden "sealies" (2026 links forthcoming)

Connect: Facebook, Twitter (x), instagram, bluesky

Origin story: how did the Sealey Challenge begin?

The Sealey Challenge began as an informal reading goal by poet Nicole Sealey in the summer of 2017. Balancing her administrative work with the promotion of her first book left Nicole little time to read for pleasure. So she decided to challenge herself to a personal goal: read a book of poems each day for the month of August. Nicole announced her intention on social media and the challenge quickly took off, inspiring its own hashtag: #SealeyChallenge!

Since then, thousands of readers have continued the tradition of joining in the “big, raucous, joyful celebration of poetry” every August.

There’s no official sign-up, no rigid structure, just a simple, radical act: read a book of poetry every day for the month of August. The goals of the Sealey Challenge are to read 31 books of poetry in 31 days, to engage with diverse voices, and connect with a community of poetry lovers that spans the globe.

While the challenge to read a book a day is, indeed, challenging, the Sealey Challenge isn't an all-or-nothing kind of endeavor—the goal is to simply spend (more) time reading poetry!

visit the sealey challenge website

Since the 2023 #SealeyChallenge, Nicole Sealey has entrusted the University of Arizona’s Poetry Center with caring for this incredible month of reading poetry, what we like to think of as a global poetic pilgrimage.

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The largest poetry-reading initiative in the world

In the past 10 years of The Sealey Challenge, we estimate more than 25 million poems have been read by the community, making it the largest poetry-reading initiative to span the globe.

Why does this matter? We know reading poetry is good for you.

The International Arts + Mind Lab in the Center for Applied NeuroAesthetics at Johns Hopkins University aggregated a range of studies to show that experiences with poetry—reading, writing, and reciting it—can improve mental health, heal traumas, elevate mood, and stimulate the right hemisphere of the brain.

Reading poetry slows us down, hones our attention, gives us a break from screens and the roughly 10,000 advertisements vying for our attention every day. Poetry binds us, builds radical empathy, reminds us of the vastness of human experience. Poetry creates community. Poetry delights. As a 2025 Sealey Challenge reader put it: "The world is on fire, and poetry is both the balm and the smoke-warning."

Read the Report

 

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There’s no wrong way to #SealeyChallenge.

The point of the Sealey Challenge isn't perfection—the point is to spend more time with poetry! Some ways to modify the challenge:

• read a poem a day
• spend 31 minutes reading poetry each day
• read chapbooks instead of full-length books
• cut the challenge in half: read 15 books in August instead of 31
• get a "BINGO" on the Sealey Challenge Bingo card
• read poems with your children each day
• if August isn’t your month, you could have yourself a #SealeySeptember (or any other time of year, too!)

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Free poetry resources

Voca - listen to more than one thousand poems read in the voice of the poet.

Poetry Centered Podcast - Enjoy 3 poems handpicked by a poet.

Poem-a-Day - Get a poem in your inbox every day from poets.org.

Poetry Foundation’s Poem of the Day - Get a poem in your inbox every day from The Poetry Foundation.