Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton and Laura Pastor, City Council Chair of the Parks, Arts, Education and Equality Subcommittee will soon appoint one passionate poet to serve as the city’s Poet Laureate.
The Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture and the Phoenix Public Library are currently calling for nominations, open until Nov. 4, to fill the city’s new position.
Gail Browne, Executive Director of the Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture, said she envisions a leader who will “be able to reflect back to us, our community, our culture, our diversity, the richness of who and what we are in the city of Phoenix.”
After the state of Arizona appointed Alberto Álvaro Ríos to the state’s first poet laureate position in 2013 and saw the push for poetry quicken, the city of Phoenix is following suit.
The position will be held for a two-year term, with three term limits, according to the city’s call for nominations. The term for the first poet laureate is set to begin on January 1, 2017.
The laureate’s responsibilities will include four public readings a year, the composition of poems for ceremonies and projects collaborating with Arizona’s Alberto Ríos and other poet laureates.
Outside of specific job guidelines, the Phoenix poet laureate will be working closely with groups already pushing for the acceleration of poetry in Phoenix.
Black Poet Ventures, a Phoenix group with the mission of using poetry and spoken word to enhance the oral tradition of African Diaspora, is just one group that’s working to bolster the city’s poetry scene.
“Sometimes we may hear the word and have a connotation of it, but we’re surrounded by poetry every day, and if some can just perform, we may appreciate it as something else,” said Leah Marche, co-founder of the group.
Steve Wilcox, communications and research director for Arizona Commission on the Arts, said he believes the city has already shown efforts to bolster the poetry scene and unite groups like Marche’s.
“They already have a great track record for taking advantage of those poets and their community to enhance public events, to bring communities together and to engage language in talking about the challenges and the opportunities in their communities,” Wilcox said.
For many, the new poet laureate will not be seen as leading the blind, but simply coming alongside trends already advocating and promoting the growth of poetry in the city.
Contact the reporter at ljmarsh1@asu.edu.
