TO THE POETRY FOUNDATION HIRING COMMITTEE
MARCH 30, 2026
Thank you for considering my application for the role of the Social Media Associate at the Poetry Foundation. My name is Caroline Macon Fleischer and I'm a Chicago-based author, poet, and multimedia artist. I'm also a longtime fan. Back in 2016, I got to help produce a Lookingglass Theatre holiday event at your beautiful building.
I will share my experience with social media and why I'm interested in this role. As a proud member of the MySpace generation, and with an Instagram archive dated back to 2011, social media is a longstanding pillar of my life. Several of my dearest friends are people I met on the Internet, which speaks to how the online world provides access to discovery. Forums and blogging platforms (both micro and longform) offer doorways into communities, exposure to diverse groups of people, and ways into new hobbies. When used correctly, social media is a torchbearer of healthy modern life.
My personal online experience logs a history of self-expression, discussion-led growth, exposure to pop culture, and a way to access points of view that are too-often buried by mainstream media. Oftentimes I find the most astute observations come from guys in their basements rather than journalists at prestigious news outlets. The online presence of arts organizations such as the Poetry Foundation offer ways to merge these two worlds.
Regarding my technical abilities, I'm a multimedia artist with experience in theatre, film and audio production. I'm fluent in HTML and CSS and know my way around basic JavaScript and Python. I mention these older coding languages because they're making a huge comeback within AI-resistant movements. People are hungrier for human branding than we've seen in many years which is why I prioritize thoughtful, interactive presentations. (For example, I don't love the word "content.") Handmade digital art is a breath of fresh air.
More than all this, though, I really love people. I'm excellent at getting "the room" involved--physically and virtually, so to speak--and believe I can bring a sense of aliveness to the online realm. I seem to always be up to something in the digital space.
As a poet, I've served as a volunteer for Poems While You Wait for 12 years. PWYW is a collective of poets and our typewriters that writes custom poetry on-demand to support the literary nonprofit, Rose Metal Press. I love poetry and bring knowledge about its forms and history--both Western and Eastern--as well as curiosity and excitement about contemporary arts.
For the last 8 years, I've taught Creative Writing and English as a college professor for schools including Loyola University, DePaul University, and North Central College. Outside of Academia, I've taught at Catapult (now defunct) and through StoryStudio at Chicago Public Libraries. Amidst the current instabilities of academia, I'm thinking about what life may look like outside of it and feel open to expressing my talents in a new capacity.
I look forward to staying in touch and hearing more about this position. Thank you for your time!
CAROLINE MACON FLEISCHER