New Mexico Poets: Poets Laureate

The New Mexico Poet Laureate is a 3-year position with the goals of supporting literacy and enhancing education while promoting arts enrichment across the state. Through speaking engagements statewide and programs at schools and libraries, the poet will engage all New Mexicans with poetry. They will also document their travels via web journal and podcast.

Lauren Camp, second New Mexico State Poet Laureate

• Took House, her most recent, received the American Fiction Award in Poetry and was named a Distinguished Favorite for the Independent Press Award.
• One Hundred Hungers won the Dorset Prize and was also a finalist for the Arab American Book Award, the Housatonic Book Award, and the Sheil Margaret Motton Prize.
• Turquoise Door: Finding Mabel Dodge Luhan in New Mexico was a finalist for the New Mexico-Arizona Book Award

Levi Romero, inaugural Poet Laureate, 2020 - 2023

• Querencia: Reflections on the New Mexico Homeland, edited by Vanessa Fonseca-Chávez, Levi Romero and Spencer R. Herrera
• A Poetry of Remembrance: New and Rejected Works
• In the Gathering of Silence
• Sagrado: A Photopoetics Across the Chicano Homeland, written with Spencer R. Herrera

The purpose of the Poet Laureate is to build awareness and appreciation of poetry in the wider community, to undertake projects that will make poetry more accessible to people in their everyday lives and to celebrate poetry and the power of the written word while honoring the cultural diversity of our community.

Joshue Concha (Taos Pueblo) 2022-2023

Joshua Concha (Taos Pueblo) Selected as Next Taos Poet Laureate December 7, 2021

Catherine Strisik, 2020 - 2022

• Insectum Gravitis
• The Mistress
• Thousand-Cricket Song
• Aikaterína (a manuscript-in-progress)

Sawnie Morris, inaugural Poet Laureate, 2018-2019

Laura Tohe 2015

• Tseyí Deep in the Rock

Luci Tapahonso, inaugural Poet Laureate, 2013

Kayt Peck, inaugural poet laureate 2021

Kayt Peck is the First Las Vegas Poet Laureate

The Albuquerque Poet Laureate Program (APLP) celebrates poetry by recognizing a resident poet who makes meaningful connections, honors and serves our diverse community, elevates the importance of the art form, and shares poetry with Albuquerque residents.

Anna C. Martinez, 2022 - 2024

Mary Oishi, 2020 - 2022

Michelle Otero, 2018 - 2020

Manuel Gonzalez, 2016 -2018

Jessica Helen Lopez, 2014 - 2016

 Hakim Bellamy, inaugural Poet Laureate, 2012-2014

Established in 2005, the Poet Laureate is an honorary position that is both ceremonial and educational, with the goal of promoting the presence of poetry in the city. 

Tommy Archuleta 2024 -

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=380434848208655

Darryl Wellington, 2021-2023

Elizabeth Jacobson, 2019 - 2021

Jon Davis, 2012 - 2014

Joan Logghe, 2010 - 2012

Valerie Martinez, 2008 - 2010

Arthur Sze, inaugural Poet Laureate, 2006 - 2008

The Poet Laureate Program of the Silver City/Grant County area, established in 2011 by the Steering Committee of the Southwest Festival of the Written Word, and endorsed by the Mayor and Town Council of the Town of Silver City, strives to promote a meaningful poetic presence as part of the diverse cultural fabric of our town and region.

Healther Frankland 2024 - 2026

Allison Waterman 2021 - 2024

Eve West Bessier 2019 - 2021

Beate Sigriddaughter and Jack Crocker, 2017 - 2019

Elise Stuart, 2014 - 2017

Bonnie Buckley Maldonado 2012 - 2014, Inaugural Poet Laureate