A Blossoming Population of Poets

Cities Big and Small Add Laureates to Influence Local Arts

Mary McElveen, Alexandria's poet laureate, with her cat, Jake. (By Gerald Martineau -- The Washington Post)

At the founding of the United States, John Adams wrote that he had to study politics and war so his sons could study mathematics, commerce and geography. Their practical dedication would then give the next generation a right to study poetry.

Judging by the number of local laureates, Washington area poets are taking up the call.

On March 1, Mary McElveen became the City of Alexandria's first official poet laureate, with a $500 stipend and $3,000 budget for her three-year appointment. She joined Don Berger, who a few years ago became Takoma Park's first official poet laureate.

The District's laureate, Dolores Kendrick, has her own office, a $10,000 annual budget and a $12,000 annual stipend. Virginia and Maryland have laureates, too.

In the past five years, cities, counties and even one-stoplight villages, in the Washington area and across the continent, have been appointing poets laureate.

What's going on? Is the time ripe, as Adams predicted, for a full flowering of American literary culture? Did city officials attend the same promote-the-arts workshop? Or is this an official response to the darkness of the times?

"There's been a renewed interest in poetry since 9/11," said Doris Stengel, head of the National Federation of State Poetry Societies. "In the face of terrible tragedy and war, I believe people seek beauty and meaning to life, which poetry can provide."

Ludwig P. Gaines, an Alexandria City Council member who proposed the local laureate idea -- and favors poets of the Harlem Renaissance and wrote poetry in college -- said he thought it would be "an absolutely cool thing."

His idea was embraced by the council, which unanimously chose McElveen, 58, an unpublished poet, former chemistry teacher and corporate trainer, because they liked her ideas and poems better than those of 17 others. Alexandria's honorary poet in residence, Jean Elliot, who also served as a poet laureate of Virginia, died in 1999.

The mission of the city's poet laureate, Gaines said, is to promote literary arts and raise the visibility of poetry. There will be celebratory poems and readings for city events, festivals and parades. But at its heart, he said, the laureate's role is to solidify a sense of community.

"Poetry can give voice to our emotions in a way that regular dialogue can't capture," Gaines said. "We are seeing our society and our localities looking inward. I think having a poet laureate may be an expression of that introspection on a very public level."

Some of McElveen's poems, such as "Thoughts at the Gas Station," are meditations on modern life: