The Oregon poet laureate position remains vacant months after the position has traditionally been filled.
While state law allows the governor one year to fill the vacancy, every poet laureate for the last 50 years has been announced between March and May. As of press time, Gov. Tina Kotek, who began her term in January 2023, has yet to name one. This is despite the fact that the nominations for poet laureate were sent to the Governor’s Office in February, with the expectation that Kotek would announce her selection by May. As the incumbent poet laureate ended his position in May, Oregon has been without a poet laureate for the longest period of time in 16 years.
The Oregon poet laureate is an official state position given to an accomplished Oregon poet. The governor makes the selection, which is typically announced through a press release. The position offers a $15,000 per year stipend, and an additional $10,000 budget for traveling around the state during their two-year term, engaging in public appearances and writing poems focusing on Oregon life and interests.
“Poetry can help us better understand ourselves, one another, and the world in which we live,” says Ce Rosenow, a writing and literature instructor at Lane Community College. She adds that “having a poet laureate helps create and support poetry opportunities around the state, raising awareness and celebrating poetry in a variety of ways” while also demonstrating that poetry is recognized and valued by Oregon.
Cecelia Hagen, who moved to Eugene more than 50 years ago to get her MFA in poetry, says the possibility the position will be vacant for up to a year has “left a void” in missing workshops, readings and other public events in which the poet laureate would appear, to foster art and spread it throughout the state.
As we talked
a light breeze
touched my cheek
and color striped the sky.
Even after I woke,
what you said
continued
to soothe me
though I couldn’t
Remember
a single one of your
words
any better
than I could
catch a sparrow
with my bare hands
By Cecelia Hagen
According to state statute, the role honors “the resident poets of Oregon who have been most responsible for capturing the beauty and spirit of the state through the medium of verse.”
The Oregon Poet Laureate position has a rich history, with internationally known poet Edwin Markham the first person to serve the role in 1923. Previous poets laureate have consisted of a variety of professors and editors, as well as the world renowned William Stafford, followed by his son, Kim Stafford. While it began as a lifetime appointment at the governor’s discretion, in 2005 the statute was changed with a 2-year term, and a requirement was added for the governor to choose a new poet laureate within one year after the last poet laureate’s term ends. The poet laureate’s announcement and tenure has remained consistent ever since.
Asked about what was causing the announcement delay in the Governor’s Office this year, press secretary Anca Matica said in a short email to Eugene Weekly that “The Governor has one year to appoint the Poet Laureate following a vacancy. The Governor is currently in the process of reviewing the finalists. The appointment will be announced this summer.”
Hagen, among many others in the poetry community, is dissatisfied. “I just find it shocking that there’s this delay,” she says. “I can’t imagine there’s a problem with the committee’s recommendation,” she says of the selection process. “It’s very disappointing.
“Poets are used to being overlooked. But this negligence seems almost insulting,” Hagen adds. “It would be so easy to just send out a press release. It feels like it’s nothing to [Kotek].”
In April 2020, Portland poet Anis Mojgani was named the 10th Oregon poet laureate, and in 2022 began his second term. As the statute for the position allows a poet laureate no more than two consecutive terms, May 2024 marked the end of Mojgani’s tenure.
Oregon Humanities is a nonprofit organization that works to unite communities through storytelling and is contracted and funded by the Oregon Cultural Trust to administer the Poet Laureate Program. At the end of 2023, Oregon Humanities sent out the call for a new poet to fill the position.
Out of 71 nominees, 40 accepted their nomination and two names were sent to the Governor’s Office in February — the names of the two finalists have not been released by Oregon Humanities — and only one will be chosen.
None of them have heard back.
The selection process involves established Oregon poets participating in a nomination and subsequent application process. The applications are reviewed by a committee convened by Oregon Humanities. After the committee pores over all of the applications, they send its top recommendations to the governor.
At first, nothing seemed unusual about the timing of this year’s announcement, with all signs pointing to a May reveal; straying towards the later end of the three-month period is common for a newly appointed governor. In fact, the Oregon Cultural Trust’s website still says that the poet laureate will be announced in May 2024 (it also still says that Mojgani is the current poet laureate).
The Poet Laureate
in the Laundromat
for Lawson Inada
He stands to watch the comforter
hug and unhug itself
as the dryer muscles on and hums
its white-noise lullaby.
Even in the warm, overbright room,
he wears a leather jacket, hands
pushed deep in the pockets. Music,
perhaps, is what he hears
in the tinning and rumble,
notes dopplered to a shriek. Or poems,
spinning and powered
by their unseen magnets.
He is not writing this down.
It washes over, river
and color and metal. But sometimes
something catches—
there, you can see—
he tilts his head, surprised.
By Amy Miller
(originally appeared in Spillway)
Then, in June, EW released an update in Slant on the poet laureate selection process, quoting a March email from Lucy Solares, the Oregon Humanities program director, to “look out for that press release in May-ish for the big announcement.”
Well, now it’s July-ish and eyes are still peeled.
Carrie Kikel, the communications director of the Oregon Cultural Trust, says, “The governor makes decisions on her own schedule. We are hoping that we will hear something very soon, and we are poised to announce it as soon as we have information to share.”
During the traditional April-May announcement period, Kotek was embroiled in a controversy that involved plans to give her wife, Aimee Kotek Wilson, a formal role in office. On May 1, the governor apologized and backtracked after thousands of pages of emails from her top staffers were released expressing concerns about the decision, and five key staff left their jobs.
After the Jan. 12 application deadline for poets, the sole communication that Ashland nominee Amy Miller has since received from anyone in regards to an update on the matter, was a June 10 email from Oregon Humanities, saying:
“Our original hope was to be back in touch at the end of May… the process is taking a bit longer so we wanted to give you that update and let you know we will be back in touch as soon as we hear from Governor Kotek’s office.”
Aside from this, Miller says it has been “radio silence.”
Brian Rogers, the executive director of Oregon Cultural Trust, is the communication pipeline between the Governor’s Office and Oregon Humanities regarding the poet laureate. In a call to EW, he noted that Kotek is a new governor who is busy with “commissions, meetings, and all kinds of appointments across the state. It does take time,” he says. “She also wants to do a careful job.”
Regarding Kotek’s timeliness, Rogers says he is “feeling confident within the next couple weeks” that she will make a decision. “Definitely by August, hopefully.”
Ben Waterhouse, Oregon Humanities’ communication director, says that while they are not involved in, or have knowledge of when Kotek plans on choosing a poet, “We look forward to hearing from her soon.”
“I don’t feel slighted or annoyed really at all,” Miller says of the delay. “Maybe it’s in a big pile of stuff that somebody is trying to get to in the Governor’s Office. I’ve worked in offices long enough, that’s where my mind goes,” she smiles. “My concern is that we get a great poet laureate, and I’m sure we will, because the pool is so rich.”
Rosenow agrees, saying that “it is important for the governor to take the time she needs to make a good decision.”
Harney Lake
When the land said stop talking, I stopped
moving, as though words were needed to keep going,
to soften the blow of lava smashed across this scape,
to deflect the unrelenting gaze of land meeting sky halfway,
to guide my deaf hand across the lupine’s colorful daring, now squelched by heat,
and warn the streams giddy off the Steens,
that from this alkaline basin there is no escape.
By Ellen Waterston
However, other Oregon poets are not as sanguine. In many cases, the word “disappointment” appears as much in the poetry community as “soon” does in communication memos regarding the delayed announcement.
Poet Ellen Waterston is a nominee from Bend. “I’m disappointed that a new poet laureate wasn’t announced in a timely fashion. Everybody who applied had to adhere to a deadline,” she says. “And if we had known we had more time, we probably would have submitted better applications,” she adds with a chuckle.
Switching to a more serious note, she refers to the numerous statements that the governor has yet to find the time to make a selection: “God knows all of the challenges facing any governor are enormous. But I do think that in the scope of things, that sending out a poet laureate around the state is like sending out an olive branch,” Waterston says. “It’s a way to start to talk about [issues] in communities in a way that can be healing. And it’s a way to bring voices forward that may not feel they have a chance to express themselves.”
She continues, “The reason why everybody is so busy is because there are so many huge issues, and if choosing a poet laureate can be seen as a helpful thing, it might be able to be moved up on the priority list a bit,” she says. “Poetry is magical that way. It can move mountains.”