Building a Sense of Place: Poets Laureate in Wisconsin Communities

by Margaret Rozga

From Door County, south through cities along Lake Michigan’s shore, then heading inland and northward to Lake Superior, Wisconsin poetry is growing deeper roots, extending branches, and seeing new flowering. The creativity and initiative of city and regional poets laureate is an important source of this growth. Oshkosh and Wausau embarked on their programs in 2021, and Sheboygan did so a year earlier. These communities now engage with the projects of their first poets laureate. Kenosha, Racine, Madison, Milwaukee, Amery, Stevens Point, Bayfield, and Door County all have ongoing programs, some founded more than a decade ago.

An overarching goal of all these programs is to connect poetry to the larger community. In the words of the Wausau position description, the poet laureate helps grow “a community voice that contributes to a sense of place.”

The range of projects local poets laureate have initiated to achieve this goal is inspiring. Even in communities without a formal poet laureate program, poets may find models for projects in their locale. With an officially sponsored position, however, a poet laureate will have more visibility, may more easily find collaborative partner organizations, and thus be able to reach a wider audience and a wider network of volunteer assistants.

Here are some of the many examples.

The Door County Board of Supervisors established their poet laureate program in 2010. As an official Door County position, now administered by Write On, Door County, the poets laureate begin their two-year terms with a reading at a County Board meeting and compose original poems for other County events. They bring poetry to where people are, community festivals, concerts, and parks. Nancy Rafal, the 2019-2021 poet laureate, earned the honor of that position for her long-term poetry advocacy that included helping to establish the poetry trail in Newport State Park.   

To honor Door County’s poet laureate tradition Mike Orlock, the 2021-2023 Poet Laureate worked with co-editor Tom Davis, to publish Seven by Seven, an anthology of seven poems by each of the seven poets who have served in this position.

Orlock also was instrumental in organizing "Words & Music Under the Stars," an evening of music and verse hosted at the Write On, Door County facility in Juddville. Three local songwriters (Jeanne Kuhns, Holly Olm, and Nick Orlock) and five poets (Sharon Auberle, Ralph Murre, Tom Davis, Ethel Mortensen Davis and Mike Orlock) alternated performances in a two-hour show. Given the event’s success, Orlock plans to do it again in coming summers with new readers and singers. Orlock also participates in a series of writing workshops for teenagers, run through Write On, Door County, and hosted by public schools and organizations like the Boys and Girls Club of Sturgeon Bay.

Inaugural poet laureate for the Sheboygan program, Lisa Vihos brings her long experience as an organizer of poetry events to this new position. During the COVID pandemic, she contributed a monthly poem to the online Sheboygan Insider and organized Words and Music in the Park, three socially-distanced and masked open-mic poetry events.

In collaboration with Lakeshore Natural Resource Partnership (LNRP), she organized a virtual program in the fall of 2020 in which several poets laureate shared poems about water videotaped near water. The poetry was interspersed with information offered by different watershed groups along Lake Michigan.

From January 2021 through June 2022, she hosted Poetry on Air, a monthly podcast produced by Sheboygan’s Mead Library. For each episode, Vihos and a guest poet, or community member who loves poetry, share poems and explore the ways that poetry inspires, heals, and brings meaning to our lives. All the episodes of Poetry on Air are available on the Mead Library website.

In April 2021, Vihos created Poetry by Post, inviting library patrons to sign up to receive a hand-written Vihos poem in the mail. 167 people from age 8 to 80 requested poems. People were invited to decorate the margins around the poem. Thirty-four decorated poems were returned and displayed for a month in the library. For the 2022 iteration of this project, Vihos provided a prompt for participants to create ekphrastic poetry inspired by work on view at John Michael Kohler Arts Center.

Vihos wrote occasional poems for municipal events and a memorial poem for Ruth DeYoung Kohler, who served for over 50 years as director of the John Michael Kohler Arts. The poem was used at the Midsummer Festival of the Arts in 2021 for an art making activity in which people decorated magnetic Snapple caps, one cap for each word in the poem. The decorated words were placed in order and displayed on a magnetic board in the cafe during the festival.

The Milwaukee poet laureate program is in its twenty-second year. Begun under the initiative of the Milwaukee Public Library, it continues to operate under their direction, funded by Friends of the Library. Library Director Joan Johnson introduced Mario Willis, the 2022-2024 poet laureate as “the library’s Poet Laureate.”

Willis is a podcaster and spoken word artist, who has twice been a member of Milwaukee's National Poetry Slam Team. He brings to his new position experience as the co-creator and host of “Pancakes & Poetry,” a community celebration during Milwaukee's annual Bronzeville Week Festival. He also curated open mic events at the Riverwest Public House and other Milwaukee venues. He plans to continue offering readings and workshops during his term.

A special focus of his term will be implementing a youth poet laureate program. His immediate predecessor, Dasha Kelly Hamilton, laid the organizational groundwork for this program. She secured key partnerships with Woodland Pattern Book Center, UW-Milwaukee, Milwaukee Public Schools, the Milwaukee Public Library and United Way to put the program on solid organizational ground. The youth poet Laureate program is piloting in the 2022-2023 school year with a high school course in the fall, community workshops in winter, and a Milwaukee Youth Poet Laureate ceremony in spring 2023.

The Kenosha/Racine Poet Laureate program, established in 2011, is coordinated by a volunteer Board which appoints poets to serve two-year terms as Poets Laureate of Kenosha and Racine, including their cities, towns, and villages.  The appointments are based on competitive applications and an interview process and seek to recognize poets whose poetry, community involvement, and ability to inspire poetry in others thus make meaningful impact on the diverse communities in Kenosha and Racine counties. The Kenosha/Racine Poet Laureate program sponsors a monthly reading at Kenosha’s Pollard Gallery and Gifts.

John Bloner, Jr., who recruited local institutions and individuals to create the Kenosha/Racine Poet Laureate Program, notes that “poets who have worn the laurel wreath have visited our schools, libraries, museums, prisons, parks, and performance spaces to help us digest complex emotions, view the world from new perspectives, and experience common words and phrases as music.”

Joseph Engel, the Kenosha Poet Laureate, picks up those themes in readings with the Kenosha Public Library and at the 2021 Wisconsin Creative Community Champions Award event in Racine. His particular contribution to connecting poetry and diverse communities is his workshop with members of the Kenosha chapter of National Alliance on Mental Illness, a project approved by NAMI.

2020-2022 Racine Poet Laureate Debra Hall, a high school Spanish teacher at Racine’s William Horlick High School, leads an after-school program there to introduce students to poetic voice, mood and forms.  She created a celebratory lesson plan for National Poetry Month, "There's A Poem In This Place," that was sent to Racine High School English teachers with opportunities for students to have their work posted online. Her poem about trees, "Symmetry/ La Simetría", was installed in Uptown Racine as part of the Waste Not 2.0 Project. She has been a featured reader at Kenosha Public Library, Burlington Public Library, and Racine’s Spectrum School of the Arts, among others.

Madison’s poet laureate program, begun in 1977, is the oldest in the state. In its 45 years, seven poets have served; two of the seven, Wendy Vardaman and Sarah Busse served as co-poets laureate from 2012 to 2015.

Given her many projects, current Madison Poet Laureate Angela Trudell Vasquez welcomed her January 2022 appointment to a second two-year term, just in time to oversee the naming of the first Madison youth poet laureate, a project she envisioned and has worked to implement since her first appointment.

Another major project is the Bus Lines Poetry Project, a collaboration with Edgewood College and the Madison Public Library. Trudell Vasquez curates the selection of poems from poets of all ages. Edgewood College design students create images for the poems. Trudell Vasquez served also as poet in residence for the Madison Public Library, offering workshops in collaboration with visual artists, a naturalist, and a dance teacher each for a particular age group: adults, teens and tweens, young children, and bilingual families.

With her husband Devin Trudell, Trudell Vasquez hosts a monthly show, Madison BookBeat for 89.90 FM WORT. They engage in conversation with a guest Wisconsin writer on the topic of the guest writer’s recent book and about the arts and the community they create, exploring also topics of race, class, and the intersections of literature, history, and politics. Their show has been listed among the best new podcasts in Madison.

Trudell Vasquez continues the decades’ old tradition of Madison poets laureate curating the reading of a poem each month at a City Council meeting. She likes to invite poets who have not yet gotten the public recognition their work deserves. At the bequest of the Mayor, she wrote a poem to honor those we have lost in the pandemic. That poem has since been published nationally. In May 2022, she gave the keynote address for the UW-Madison students graduating from the Chicano Latino Studies certificate program. Presenting workshops in Madison public schools has been an ongoing part of her work in bringing poetry to the community.

In his first year as the Oshkosh inaugural poet laureate, Thomas Cannon has established an active track record.  He organized open mics before and during National Poetry month and read an original poem at the Oshkosh State of The City Address.

He has offered poetry workshops hosted by the Oshkosh Public Library.  One of these, a national poetry month interactive workshop geared for students in grades 6-9, explored  how poetry can help middle school students work through feelings and problems and develop healthy practices such as gratitude and savoring the good times. The workshop emphasized going beyond the first draft to turn words into powerful tools to improve the world around you. Poems from this workshop and those submitted by older teens were on display in the teen and children's areas of the library.

Other workshops were offered for inclusive groups of participants, preteens to seniors, experienced and new poets. These included Write Now!, a series of free, fun writing sessions to jump start creative thinking and writing exercises that connect to daily life experiences in ways that enriched those experiences. Cannon also facilitated a two-session poetry workshop at the Writing Instrument Museum, a hidden gem in Winneconne.

Another of Cannon’s accomplishments is editing a chapbook of poems by people with a connection to Oshkosh. A free PDF (or mobi) copy was made available for download. He maintains an active Oshkosh Poet Laureate Facebook page and invites others to post their poetry news on that page.

Jon Gadbois was first appointed to his ongoing position as Stevens Point Poet Laureate in 2015. One of his recurring projects has been the “Poetry Slam at Riverfront Rendezvous,” an official city event celebrating the July 4th holiday at Pfiffner Park on the Wisconsin River. Although this event was on hiatus during the past three pandemic years, Gadbois looks forward to resuming in 2023. It serves as a major community builder, attracting a very diverse group of participants: young and old, experienced and inexperienced, slam style and traditional. For the audience, unfamiliar with poetry slams, it is both informative and entertaining.

Among his collaborations, Gadbois works with Create Portage County, a local non-profit organization focused on placemaking and arts advocacy.

Dawn Anderson, the inaugural Poet Laureate of Wausau, began her term at the 2021 Central Wisconsin Book Festival reading with Wisconsin Poet Laureate Dasha Kelly Hamilton. For the 2022 Book Festival, she collaborated on Wausau’s first poetry walk tied into Wausau’s 150th anniversary celebration. The poems featured historical figures, places, and events that represent the diversity of Wausau’s people and history.

Anderson kicked off the open mic series at UW-Stevens Point at Marathon County.  She regularly teaches memoir and ekphrastic poetry writing at The Landing at Woodson YMCA. She has judged a poetry contest through the Marathon County Public Library with impressive poems by area youth. Supporting the area’s arts scene, Anderson participated in Art Muse and writes poems for local events including the Wausau Festival of Arts and Wausau Belly Dance events.

LaMoine MacLaughlin, first appointed poet laureate of Amery in 2003, has the honor of being the longest serving city poet laureate in the state. This position complements his role as co-founder and executive director of the Northern Lakes Center for the Arts and the Northern Lakes School of the Arts. The Center has earned its inclusion in the book, The 100 Best Small Arts Towns in America. McLaughlin has served as national co-chair of the rural and small community interest area of Americans for the Arts, and as a member of the Board of Trustees of the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts. As part of his dual role as poet laureate and arts center director, MacLaughlin coordinates the Northern Lakes Writers’ Guild whose members read their work at one meeting, critique it at the next, and publish frequently. He also curates poetry readings at the Center. An active writer, he serves as poetry editor of the regional cultural magazine, What’s Playing? and editor of The Hometown Gazette, a newspaper serving the Clayton/Amery area.

The current Bayfield poet laureate, Dee Sweet, is the third poet to hold that position since 2017, its inaugural year. Bayfield resident Don Albrecht proposed in 2016 that Bayfield consider establishing the position after dedication of Bayfield’s first Heritage Tree where poet Howard Papp read an original poem. Those in attendance felt Papp’s reading added to the civic event. Bayfield’s program therefore includes a requirement that the poet produce at least one poem per year for public presentation and publication.

Sweet, who often writes on social and indigenous justice issues, also embraces this emphasis on celebrating the Bayfield area. “There is a lot of raw material in living near Lake Superior; it is almost magical, almost mystical,” she said. She is currently working on a new collection of poems related to the region, tentatively titled Lake Effect.

Lucy Tyrrell, 2020-2021 Bayfield poet laureate, coordinated the participation of 52 poets and artists in the creation of two books to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Apostle Islands National Lakeshore: A is for Apostle Islands and Island Intersections that put together trios of poems, art, and science summaries from a resource stewardship symposium. Copies of the ABC book for all ages were given to area school, college, public and tribal libraries. An exhibit of poetry and art from both projects was held at the Washburn Cultural Center. Tyrrell also worked with the Bayfield Chamber and Visitors Bureau to create a Bayfield Poetry Trail where for a month twenty-two area shops each posted a poem, often one whose subject coordinated with the business.

Sources of support for the initiatives of city and regional poets laureate vary. Several programs consider the position voluntary and do not provide financial support. Some sponsoring organizations provide the program a budget for projects, though not a stipend for the poet laureate. Considering the compensation allotted for other project managers, this lack, where it is the case, needs to be remedied. Many programs created as part of the local government or a governmental unit, however, provide the poet laureate with an honorarium. The range varies from several hundred dollars to several thousand for a two-year term. Most poets laureate collaborate with other organizations in the community, a source of people power and sometimes financial support.

For communities considering a poet laureate project, here are links to information and documents that can provide models.

Door County Poet Laureate program administered by Write On, Door County

Sheboygan Poet Laureate program

Milwaukee Poet Laureate program administered by Milwaukee Public Library

Kenosha/Racine Poets Laureate program

Madison Poet Laureate program

Oshkosh Poet Laureate program

Wausau Poet Laureate program, including position description and request for proposals

Bayfield Poet Laureate program