Salt Lake City is looking for their first Poet Laureate

SALT LAKE CITY — Salt Lake isn’t the first city in Utah to have a poet laureate… but it is the largest one.

The city is growing and program coordinator for the Poet Laureate Program, Todd Oberndofer, said they want to be investing in the arts.

“They’ll be going where the people are, and they’ll be doing either workshops or they’ll be doing portrait readings, or…  sometimes maybe there’ll be an opening for something that they’ll be working through,” Oberndorfer said. “And so it’s all about really giving opportunities to literary arts to share what they have to say directly with the community.”

The Poet Laureate will lead public reading, participate in city events, create an annual civic poem and work with the arts council on a special project.

“This is what I’m most excited for, is that over their three-year term, they’re going to be responsible for creating and developing a signature community project.” Oberndorfer said. “That could be a single initiative, that could be a series of programs. And that is something that we are all excited to see in the application process.”

Lorrain Jeffery, a chapter president with the Utah State Poetry Society, said this is a great opportunity for a poet to not only be paid, but also have name recognition so people will listen to their work.

“When you have a position like this that has a title, because it carries some prestige, people listen better,” Jeffery said. “It doesn’t make the poetry better. The poetry was there anyway. But I think people listen, do a better job of listening. And sometimes they hear something that they wouldn’t have heard otherwise.”

Obendorfer said they are hoping to help someone become a literary arts cultural leader.

“Poets are courageous and they represent all of us,” Obendofer said. ‘They are willing to get in front of a group of people where people like myself like to stand at the back of the room. And so I want to find out that they are representing us as much as we need them.”

Jeffery said poets often write about the issues of the day and giving them a title allows their words to be seriously considered.

“Particularly our poetry and our writing address a lot of critical issues to people in their lives, not just, sometimes we think, well, it’s just rhymes and nostalgia, and it isn’t all that,” Jeffery said. “I’ve heard some wonderful, very impactful poems on subjects that we deal with today.”

She said it’s also exciting to have a poetry opportunity to be paid, as the position comes with a $5,000 per year honorarium.

“Poetry isn’t something you’re going to make a lot of money at. I’m sorry, but you just don’t.”

Applications are open until May 17th, applicants have to be over 18 years old, a Salt Lake City resident, and have at least one collection of poetry published.

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