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State Poets Update – New NC Poet Laureate

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North Carolina State Captal. Raleigh, North Carolina.
North Carolina State Capital. Raleigh, North Carolina, 1938.
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/csas200803279/

Shortly after I published Friday’s post on recent state poet laureate happenings I received an email alert that North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory had just appointed Valerie Macon the new N.C. poet laureate. So much for my timing! Macon succeeds Joseph Bathanti in the two-year position and is the state’s eighth poet laureate. Several media outlets commenting on the appointment have noted that Gov. McCrory departed from standard protocol by not consulting the North Carolina Arts Council before making his selection.

A complete list of current state poets laureate follows.

State Laureate
Alabama Andrew Glaze
Alaska Nora Marks Dauenhauer
Arizona Alberto Ríos
Arkansas Peggy Vining
California Juan Felipe Herrera
Colorado David Mason
Connecticut Dick Allen
Delaware JoAnn Balingit
District of Columbia Dolores Kendrick
Florida Vacant
Georgia Judson Mitcham
Hawaii Kealoha (Steven Kealohapau’ole Hong-Ming Wong)
Idaho Diane Raptosh
Illinois Kevin Stein
Indiana Unofficial: Cecil Tresslar
Official: George Kalamaras
Iowa Mary Swander
Kansas
Wyatt Townley
Kentucky Frank X Walker
Louisiana Ava Leavell Haymon
Maine Wesley McNair
Maryland Stanley Plumly
Massachusetts No position
Michigan No position
Minnesota Joyce Sutphen
Mississippi Natasha Trethewey
Missouri William Trowbridge
Montana Tami Haaland
Nebraska Twyla Hansen
Nevada Vacant
New Hampshire Alice B. Fogel
New Jersey No position
New Mexico No position
New York Marie Howe
North Carolina Valerie Macon
North Dakota
Larry Woiwode
Ohio No position
Oklahoma Nathan Brown
Oregon Peter Sears
Pennsylvania
No Position
Rhode Island Rick Benjamin
South Carolina Marjory Heath Wentworth
South Dakota David Allan Evans
Tennessee Margaret Britton Vaughn
Texas Dean Young
Utah Lance Larsen
Vermont Sydney Lea
Virginia Ron Smith
Washington Elizabeth Austen
West Virginia Marc Harshman
Wisconsin Max Garland
Wyoming Echo Roy Klaproth

Help me keep the list of state poets laureate current by contacting me with any changes you discover in the above positions.

Comments (2)

  1. Sad thing about McCrory bypassing procedures and criteria set up for years in NC. And he appointed, without consulting anyone, a Republican woman who worked for the state and has not published a single poem in a literary magazine. Her two chapbooks are self-published.

  2. Was looking at New Mexico has no postings. I am a poet my poems are published on poetry.com under the poet name azzow2 My address is in Vaughn New Mexico.

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