Montgomery County Poet Laureate Hallie Moore, crowned with the laurel wreath given her by previous Montgomery County Poet Laureate Dede Fox

A poet laureate is a poet who for many years has written poetry, shared poetry, taught poetry, and published poetry, and is now being recognized and named by The Library of Congress, critics, scholars, and booksellers in the poetry community with the honorific of poet laureate.  Nationally, we have recognized these poets since 1937, and for thirty years these poets, each titled “Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress”, were key in working with the Library to establish and update the Library’s poetry collections.

Then in 1985, through an act of Congress, the title changed to Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry. The key difference is that, with this new title, a poet laureate has a much bigger stage than the congressional library. They take poetry to the public– public readings, books, lectures, conferences, and innumerable outreach programs.

Our current national poet laureate is Ada Limón, who has recently published an anthology of 50 American contemporary poets entitled You Are Here.

Fun facts:  Our oldest poet laureate was Stanley Kunitz, appointed at age 95. Our youngest, Rita Dove, was appointed at age 40.

Poets at presidential inaugurations: John F Kennedy’s inauguration in 1961 included a poet for the first time–Robert Frost.

Current local Poets to look for:

City of Houston Poet Laureate: Aris Kian, who is a visual artist as well as a wordsmith.

Texas State Poet Laureate: Amanda Johnston

See also

Meet the Poet and Ask The Poet

For Wikipedia’s take on the matter: History