Poet laureate program, Poets on the Salish Sea are looking forward

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Current poet laureate Conner Bouchard-Roberts at his bookshop over Aldrich's. Photo by Diane Urbani de la Paz  [/caption]

Arts News By Diane Urbani de la Paz

Does poetry belong at the city council meeting? Should poets be allowed into civic discourse?

Yes and yes, Port Townsend officials say. They’re carrying on the fledgling tradition of a city poet laureate, and inviting applications for the 2026-2027 term.

The next Port Townsend poet laureate will succeed inaugural laureate Conner Bouchard-Roberts, who was appointed to serve during 2024 and 2025. He added poetry to city council and public library gatherings through his “Poems for the Time Being” readings and discussions, which brought writers and listeners together.

As for the next poet laureate, the script can and will be modified according to that person’s passions, said City Arts and Culture Coordinator Katy Goodman. The appointee, who will start in January, will collaborate with Port Townsend Library and Port Townsend Arts Commission to infuse poetry into public discourse, community events and projects.

The application is at cityofpt.us/bc-ac/page/city-port-townsend-poet-laureate, and the deadline to submit is Aug. 31.

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City Arts and Culture Coordinator Katy Goodman. Photo courtesy of City of Port Townsend  [/caption]

Bouchard-Roberts and Goodman will host an informational talk on the poet laureate program at 5 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 13, at the Port Townsend Library, 1220 Lawrence St.. They want to answer questions about the role, which Bouchard-Roberts describes as one of service to the people of Port Townsend.

The next poet laureate will receive an annual honorarium of $1,500 — up from $1,200 when the program began — as well as project support from the city. The appointment will come from the recommendation made by the selection panel, which includes Bouchard-Roberts, local poet (and Beacon columnist) Amber Huntsman, Clallam County poet laureate Nellie Bridge, City Council member Ben Thomas and a member of the Port Townsend Arts Commission. This group will make the selection next month; the announcement of the new poet laureate will come in October.

Bouchard-Roberts urges local poets to apply, whether they’re younger or older, and whether they’ve been in town 40 years, two years or some time in between.

“Adding poetry to the city council meeting was a balm to everybody’s spirits in there,” he said of the half-dozen times he appeared in Port Townsend’s council chambers. That was just one way the poet laureate can enter the civic realm.

The “Poems for the Time Being” series was “really great; exactly what I wanted: just really good conversations,” Bouchard-Roberts added. He hopes to do one more of those evenings at the library, possibly in November.

Goodman said there are many possibilities for public poetry projects: Putting verse up inside Jefferson Transit buses, for example, or using special rain-activated paint to put poems on sidewalks, or compiling a book of community haikus, or doing a series of readings in the schools — “those are the kinds of things we can imagine,” she said.

Bouchard-Roberts, 32, owns Winter Texts, a small press, and runs a bookshop on the mezzanine at Aldrich’s market in Uptown Port Townsend. He’s the author of “A Field Companion for Wandering,” a collection of essays, illustrations, poems and stories by Bouchard-Roberts and by others including Ursula K. Le Guin, Jim Harrison, and Nha Thuyên.

As poet laureate, Bouchard-Roberts said it wasn’t always easy to align an artist’s style and project ideas with those of a government bureaucracy. Now that the city has her in the new role of Arts and Culture Coordinator, the laureate can receive an added layer of support, Goodman said.

In other poetry news, the Poetry on the Salish Sea reading series, after two years of events at Wilderbee Farm, is moving under the Centrum Foundation’s umbrella. As a new Centrum program — a sister to the Port Townsend Writers Conference and artists’ residencies — Poetry on the Salish Sea will keep presenting writers from across the region.

On Dec. 13, three more poets will appear in the next event, which will be free at Fort Worden State Park. And to celebrate Valentine’s Day 2026, 14 poets will read one poem of their own plus a love poem they adore, in another free event at Fort Worden on Feb. 14. More details will be announced later, Hunt said.

Looking into the future of the poet laureate program, Bouchard-Roberts believes it’s a matter of many poets “carrying the torch to keep it alive … it’s not just about getting your own words out there. It’s not an accolade,” but instead a living, changing role that serves the local community.

“Bring some poetry to the people,” he said.