F127. A Poet Laureate of Your Own—a How-To Discussion

D135, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1
Friday, March 29, 2019
9:00 am to 10:15 am

 

In 2017, Orlando's arts-friendly mayor decided that the city should have a poet laureate. A committee was formed, including writers and (slam) performers of poetry, college faculty, community arts organizers/administrators, city officials, a publisher, and a librarian. Three of these members share their experience of the process from inception to selection; Orlando's first poet laureate discusses her experience from application to selection to sharing highlights of her first year in "office."


Participants

Moderator:

Cecilia Rodríguez Milanés is the author of two short story collections—Oye What I’m Gonna Tell You and Marielitos, Balseros and Other Exiles, as well as Everyday Chica, the 2010 Longleaf Press Poetry Prize. She teaches literature and fiction in the MFA program at the University of Central Florida.

Ryan Rivas is the publisher of Burrow Press. His fiction has been published in Annalemma, Prick of the Spindle, decomP, Paper Darts, and elsewhere, and his work is anthologized in Best American Nonrequired Reading 2012.

Susan Lilley lives and teaches in central Florida. Her work has appeared in American Poetry Review, Gulf Coast, Poet Lore, The Southern Review, and other journals. Her collection of poetry is forthcoming from Burrow Press in 2019. She serves as the first poet laureate of Orlando, Florida.

Vidhu Aggarwal's book of poems, The Trouble with Humpadori, takes mobile forms in video, comics, and performance. She teaches postcolonial/transnational literatures and creative writing at Rollins College.

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Kansas City, Missouri

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