12 NOVEMBER 20-26, 2025 westword.com WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | How Poetic COLORADO’S ANTHOLOGY OF POETRY BY ITS TEN POETS LAUREATE WILL HELP SUSTAIN THE PROGRAM. BY KRISTEN FIORE Maybe it’s the elevation or the iambic beauty of the mountains themselves, but Colorado has always been a state full of poets. It became the second state to launch a poet laureate pro- gram in September 1919 (California started the country’s fi rst that April), and across the past century has appointed ten poets to inspire Coloradans and advocate for the art form. But their collective words have never been published between the covers of the same book — until now. Begin Where You Are: The Colorado Poets Laureate Anthology is the fi rst collection of poetry from all of Colorado’s poets laureate, and maybe even the fi rst state poets laureate anthology in general, surmises Turner Wyatt, the project’s curator and director. A few years ago, Wyatt was involved in starting a poet laureate program in Durango, where he lives. “I was thinking a lot about po- ets laureate and how it’s so cool that there’s this offi cial/unoffi cial position of this artist, and how unique that is. I found the book The Poets Laureate Anthology, which is a collec- tion of poetry of the fi rst 100 or so years of U.S. poets laureate. I thought, ‘That’s so cool. I’m going to buy the Colorado version of the same thing,’ and it didn’t exist.” He reached out to Bobby LeFebre, his friend and Colorado’s ninth poet laureate, and asked why it didn’t. “And he was like, ‘I don’t know, but it should,’” Wyatt recalls. Wyatt, a self-described entre- preneur who has helped start a handful of social enterprises and nonprofi ts over the years, got to thinking about how he could publish one for social impact. “I thought, what if we create a book and then use the profi ts from the book to create an endowment for the poet laureate so they have more funding to travel to more rural places and be able to afford to go to more low-income schools and libraries,” Wyatt says. “At the time, we didn’t know that arts funding was going to be on the chopping block a couple years later, but I think that emphasizes the validity of this right now.” Colorado’s poet laureate program is a partnership between Colorado Humanities, Colorado Creative Industries and The Word, A Storytelling Sanctuary. The next poet lau- reate will receive a stipend of $10,000 a year for public events and appearances, as well as an additional stipend of $5,000 during the fi rst year for additional events associated with the Colorado 250/150 commemo- ration, according to CCI. Even though that’s more than previous poets laureate have re- ceived, Wyatt doesn’t think it’s enough money to get the next poet laureate out of the metro bubble and into more rural areas. “That’s no fault of theirs, by any stretch,” he says of CCI and Colorado Hu- manities. “They’re doing the best they can. This is just a way of aug- menting it. It’s a way of sustaining it into the future, so that if Colorado continues to be hit by the federal government and funding runs out, our poet laureate in Colorado will have the stability into the future to continue operating.” And Colorado Humanities has defi nitely taken a hit. Earlier this year, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities rescinded most of their grants around the country as the agen- cies were ordered to redirect their focus under the Trump administration. Colo- rado Humanities, which had been expecting its annual operating grant from NEH of around $1 million (which accounts for most of its $1.5 million annual budget), lost about 70 percent of those funds. “It’s devastating to our organization. We’re in danger of clos- ing,” then-Colorado Humanities Executive Director Maggie Coval told Westword in July. The Begin Where You Are project is being managed by the nonprofi t Colorado Poets Laureate Anthology, which will use proceeds from sales of the book to fund poet laureate travel to communities “that are otherwise hard to reach, funding trips to all four corners of the state,” Wyatt says. The book was a collaborative effort between Wyatt and the fi ve Colorado poets laureate who were living at the time: Mary Crow, David Ma- son, Joseph Hutchison, LeFebre and Andrea Gibson. They all made an effort to include poems that had not been published before. “It’s so interesting to watch how the style of poetry evolved over the last century,” Wy- att muses. “A hundred years ago, the beatniks had not come. Poetry looked totally different. They were using very traditional rhyme and meter. And then you have Andrea Gibson, a hundred years later, who’s this nonbinary person who is ranting for pages and pages, and it’s beautiful, but completely different.” Begin Where You Are will also serve as Gibson’s fi rst posthu- mous publication. Gibson, who died in July from ovarian cancer, had been a strong advocate for the anthology, signing on for the project right after becoming the state’s tenth poet laureate. “We’re devastated they’re not going to be around for the publica- tion,” Wyatt says of Gibson. “This is a project that they really cared about. There are a handful of poems that Andrea wrote at the end of their life that have not been pub- lished. We’re honored to have this book be a showcase for the fi rst publication of any of their poetry since they passed away.” Nominations for Colorado’s eleventh poet laureate are currently being reviewed by a panel of representatives from arts, humanities education and literary communities, which will make recommendations to Gov- ernor Jared Polis. “Poetry and the arts are an important part of who we are in Colorado, and our poet laureate must be someone who reflects that,” Polis says. “The tragic passing of Poet Laureate Andrea Gibson impacted so many people here in Colorado and across the world, but Andrea’s legacy continues inspiring others. I look forward to fi nding Colorado’s next poet laureate to build on Gibson’s legacy, inspire young Colorado po- ets and bring us together through writing and prose.” Colorado poets laureate now serve two-year terms; the eleventh poet laureate will serve from Janu- ary 2026 — when the Centennial State starts its 150th anniversary year — to December 2027. “Poets laureate play a unique and important role in uplifting arts and culture in Colorado,” says Josh Blanchard, director of CCI. “They commemorate our past, celebrate who we are and inspire a vision for our future. We are thrilled to celebrate their contributions in this special anthology, and in turn support the work of poets laureate to come.” Sarah Olivier, the new head of Colorado Humanities, echoes those words, saying she is grateful that proceeds from the book will help the program live on and continue to in- spire and unite communities across the state. Begin Where You Are, now available for pre-order, will have an offi cial release party on Friday, December 5, at Petals & Pages, where Wyatt and Julia Seldin, a friend of Gibson’s who collaborated on the book, will speak, and LeFebre, Hutchison, Mason and Crow will do poetry readings. There’s a rumor that Polis might attend. Wyatt hopes that people fi nd healing in the book. “I think poetry has such a unique ability to resonate with us in a way that con- nects us to each other, to nature, to place and to our moment in time,” he says. “I think that can be really healing, especially in challeng- ing moments. That’s why I think poetry has been so pivotal to every social movement throughout history, to our collective under- standing of our humanity throughout history. I hope they feel like they are contributing to a mission.” The Begin Where You Are book launch and poetry reading will run from 6-8 p.m. Friday, December 5, at Petals & Pages, 956 Santa Fe Drive; you can pre-order books at coloradopoets.org or purchase them at the event. CULTURE KEEP UP ON DENVER ARTS AND CULTURE AT WESTWORD.COM/ARTS Begin Where You Are is the fi rst anthology of poetry from all of Colorado’s poets laureate. Andrea Gibson, Colorado’s tenth poet laureate, died in July. COLORADO POETS L AUREATE ANTHOLOGY COCO ARAMAKI
