Yes, the intro is hokey, but this is the best (so far) overview on how the post of Indiana Poet Laureate was created and who's filled the spot since.
Jul 13, 2015:
By Maureen Hayden
CNHI State Reporter
INDIANAPOLIS
– You don’t have to rhyme your words to be the state’s next poet laureate.
But you do have to travel near
and far, as a modern day bard, promoting the values of verse.
That and perhaps be willing to risk a
little disrespect from the legislative body that created the job in the first
place.
If you let me explain, it will cause
you no pain.
Last week the Indiana Arts Commission
issued a call for Indiana's next official poet laureate, to be named in
January, and invited anyone to submit a nomination.
The two-year gig is currently filled by
George Kalamaras, an English professor with a wonderful, web-based magazine,
The Wabash Watershed.
The site offers an online tutorial on Indiana
poets, a chronicle of Kalamaras' lyrical tours of the state and details of his
poetry contest whose winners get a prize paid from the small stipend that comes
with the title of laureate.
An added bonus are videos of his
at-home poetry readings with his beagle, Bootsie, in tow.
“I want my poems to say welcome,
welcome, welcome,” Kalmaras says, noting the universal appeal of a
poetry-loving dog.
He's the state's fourth official poet laureate.
The first was Joyce
Brinkman, a longtime lover of politics and poetry who served in the General
Assembly for a decade.
In her tenure, she closed the
legislative session by reading poetry written in homage to retiring lawmakers.
When she left the Legislature, she was declared poet laureate by affirmation of
her colleagues.
She was flattered but
underwhelmed. For decades, lawmakers handed out the title willy nilly.
“It would just happen when
anybody had a whim to do it,” she said.
Brinkman brought some rhythm
and rhyme to the process.
In 2005, she convinced
legislators to pass a law turning over the task of selecting the poet laureate
to the Arts Commission. And she got them to attach this mission to the title:
To advance the appreciation of poetry statewide.
Her successors - all well
regarded, published poets - have done so in impressive ways.
One of them, Norbert Krapf,
pushed for collaboration among poets, artists and musicians. With courage and
candor, he wrote poetry about the sexual abuse he suffered, while growing up in
southern Indiana, at the hands of a Catholic priest.
Another poet, Karen Kovacik,
traveled the state to boost the Poetry Out Loud program, urging high school
students to give voice to poetry they loved. She came up with a humorously
titled blog, No More Corn, to feature accomplished poets who’ve sprung from
this farm-fields-filled state.
Kalamaras has carried on the tradition of making poetry feel relevant.
His latest contest invited people to write about history and social justice,
and what those notions mean to them as Hoosiers.
At this year's Arts
Day at the Statehouse – when advocates hope to convince lawmakers of the
importance of the arts in Indiana – Kalamaras was invited to address the
General Assembly with a poem.
He’d picked “Gray Barn
Rising”, a poem so clearly about Indiana which begins, “Somewhere inside me, a
gray barn is rising.”
Only, the reading didn’t
happen.
He was crowded out by other
legislative business, his poetry slammed.
“They forgot about him,”
Brinkman said.
She wants to make sure Indiana
doesn’t forget its need for a poet laureate. She asked me to make sure I direct
readers to the Indiana Arts Commission's website - www.in.gov/arts - for details on how the next one will
be picked.
The choice likely will be a
published poet, with a depth of experience in educational program development.
But, Brinkman insists, the title isn’t meant to be exclusionary.
“My feeling is that everybody
can be a poet,” she said. “We’re the only creatures that write. We are the
scribes of the world.”
Maureen Hayden
covers the Indiana Statehouse for CNHI's newspapers and websites. Reach her atmhayden@cnhi.com.
Follow her on Twitter @MaureenHayden
