Getting to Know California’s Poet Laureate, Lee Herrick

BY GRAHAM WOMACK

Many Californians might not know the name of the state’s current poet laureate, Lee Herrick, who accepted the position in November 2022. A new piece in the Los Angeles Times, though, could change this, offering a revealing look at a person who travels the state on a mission to serve as “a conduit between the literary and poetry world, and the civic and public sphere.”

“It’s been a very full, exciting, eye-opening year,” Herrick told the Times. “I couldn’t have guessed all the ways poetry is part of people’s lives. It’s been pretty incredible.”

Herrick talked about how he travels everywhere from state prisons to schools, saying prisoners are also Californians and that he particularly enjoys when his work takes him to high schools.

“I tell you, creativity, the arts, joy, fight—that’s all alive and well in California,” he told the Times, “and I see it most pronounced, I see it most visibly, when I visit high schools.”

The article titled “From high schools to prison: Why California’s poet laureate is always on the road” appeared first on LATimes.com.