UPDATED 1/10/2024: The Poet Laureate submission deadline has been extended to Monday, January 22, 2024.

The Howard County Poet Laureate program, created in partnership between HoCoPoLitSo, the Howard County Arts Council, and the Office of Howard County Executive Calvin Ball, is pleased to announce the members of the Poet Laureate review panel:

GRACE CAVALIERI is Maryland’s 10th Poet Laureate (2018-2023). Her newest book is The Long Game: Poems Selected & New (The Word Works). She founded and produces The Poet and the Poem series of audio interviews for public radio, now from the Library of Congress, celebrating 47 years on-air. Grace was formerly Assistant Director for Children’s Programming, Corporate PBS, then Senior Program Officer NEH. Among other awards she holds the Allen Ginsberg Award and the CPB Silver Medal. She is an Academy of American Poets Fellow. She has written 26 books of poems and plays produced on American stages.

E. ETHELBERT MILLER is a literary activist and author of two memoirs and several poetry collections. He hosts the WPFW morning radio show On the Margin with E. Ethelbert Miller and hosts and produces The Scholars on UDC-TV which received a 2020 Telly Award. Miller is Associate Editor and a columnist for The American Book Review. He was given a 2020 congressional award from Congressman Jamie Raskin in recognition of his literary activism, awarded the 2022 Howard Zinn Lifetime Achievement Award by the Peace and Justice Studies Association, and named a 2023 Grammy Nominee Finalist for Best Spoken Word Poetry Album. Miller’s latest book is How I Found Love Behind the Catcher’s Mask, published by City Point Press.

SYLVIA JONES is associate poetry editor at Black Lawrence Press and works part-time as an adjunct lecturer in creative writing, she teaches at Goucher College and George Washington University. Her writing appears in DIAGRAM, R&R Journal, Smartish Pace, Sprung Formal, Poet Lore, Shenandoah, The Poetry Society of New York, Revolut, and elsewhere. Sylvia earned her MFA from American University in Washington D.C. and lives in Baltimore, MD.

The deadline to apply to this inaugural position of Howard County Poet Laureate is fast approaching: applications close January 9th, 11:59 p.m. UPDATED: applications have been extended to close January 22nd, 11:59 p.m. All those interested are strongly encouraged to review the application guidelines and eligibility requirements, and to apply soon to allow time for completing the process.

let there be lit.