Shelby Stephenson of Benson is North Carolina's new poet laureate

I can't imagine a better choice.

Gov. Pat McCrory's office announced today that Shelby Stephenson of Benson, a retired English professor at UNC Pembroke, is our state's new poet laureate.

The selection committee, under the auspices of the Department of Cultural Resources, had given the governor three names to choose from earlier in the month.

"We recognize that we didn't follow the traditional process during the last selection," the governor said in a press release. "However, this time my appointment comes from the strong recommendation of Secretary (Susan) Kluttz and the distinguished members of the selection panel."

"It's a wonderful surprise," Stephenson said by phone. "Surprises are always wonderful in themselves. To surprise oneself in a poem -- that's a wonderful thing. So, gosh. That's the way the world goes!"

Stephenson and his wife Linda drove to Raleigh yesterday for a Christmas party. Back home in Benson, he found a message asking him to call the governor.

Stephenson returned the call and left a message with his phone number.

The governor called back Monday morning shortly before 8.

"He was very personable and asked if I would accept the nomination," Stephenson said.

"Gosh, I'd be honored," he told the governor.

Kluttz of Cultural Resources called later in the morning.

"She was just beautifully informative," said Stephenson, "and she told me who was on the panel."

"The choice of Shelby Stephenson is a delight for everyone in the state," said Anthony Abbott, a member of the selection committee and a retired head of the English department of Davidson College. "He is the earth, a true North Carolinian, a wonderful poet and a splendid human being."

Joseph Bathanti reflects on his years as our state's Poet Laureate

Rumor has it that Gov. Pat McCrory will be announcing the state's new Poet Laureate next week. So I asked the amazing Joseph Bathanti about his recent laureateship. Bathanti, as most of you know, is a poet, novelist and memoirist and was recently awarded the prestigious Roanoke-Chowan Award for his 2014 poetry collection, "Concertina." 

What did you enjoy most about being Poet Laureate?

I especially loved getting in the car and scouring North Carolina. I had made these criss-crossing treks across the state, with some intensity, back when I was in the astonishing, one-of-a-kind North Carolina Visiting Artists Program in 1985-87, and in 1998-90, so I found it invigorating to tour the state again and see, up close, not only what a beautiful piece of geography North Carolina is -- from proverbial Murphy to Manteo -- but also the rich diversity of cultures and people and sensibilities across the state. I'm habitually in the larger metropolitan areas of our state, which I love visiting, but I found so romantic, so enthralling, all those little places it was my great privilege to visit as Poet Laureate. The surprises those places and communities everywhere -- large and small -- yielded are truly the kinds of materials writers dream of stumbling upon. It was my humble version of "On the Road." What's more, instead of having Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady) riding shotgun, I was so much luckier than Sal Paradise (Jack Kerouac). I was accompanied by the Muse Laureate, my wife Joan. What's more, we were welcomed so graciously, so affectionately, by the citizens in every community we visited.

What surprised you during your tenure?

The biggest surprise was, I suppose, what I already knew; but I was nevertheless surprised by what I have always found so amazing about writing and literature in North Carolina. As Poet Laureate, I officially visited 45 of our state's 100 counties (a number of them more than once) -- though I traveled and stopped in so many other counties along my route. No matter where I went, the big places and the small places, I found poets; novelists; playwrights; essayists, genealogists; historians; and dedicated, often pathological, readers -- in libraries, schools, shelters, hospitals, you-name-it. People enthralled with the places they lived, people tithed to the land, or the architecture, or the history of their various towns and counties. North Carolina is indeed the best place in the country to be a writer and reader.

What advice do you have for the next Laureate?

The new Laureate will show up with his or her own agenda and undoubtedly the talent and wherewithal to put into a play a brand new agenda. About that I'm completely confident. I would hope the new Laureate spends a great deal of time in schools K-12, cheerleading and not only for the children, but for those embattled, dedicated, hard-working teachers. Teachers across our state ensure that the word endures, that kids learn not only to read and write, but to develop hearts and souls around their own inimitable stories. And, above all, I would encourage the new Poet Laureate to have fun.

Poet Laureate position in your hands: Nominate a NC poet today

It's a new day for North Carolina poet laureatedom.

Thanks to the clumsy move by our good governor in the summer, more poeple are aware now that there is such a position as poet laureate. And, I'll venture that more people care how that valued position is filled.
So now it's your turn.
The Department of Cultural Resources in Raleigh has issued a call for nominations for the state's next poet laureate.
This means you can nominate a poet you believe to be qualified to represent North Carolina as the ambassador for poetry and the written word.
Keep in mind that the selection criteria will be:

• A North Carolina resident with deep connections to the cultural life of the state
• Literary excellence
• Influence on other writers and appreciation of literature in its diversity throughout the state
• Ability and willingness to conduct the public engagement duties of the office
• Statewide, national or international recognition

In other words, an energetic, well-known N.C. poet with great people skills.

The process will be led by N.C. Department of Cultural Resources secretary Susan Kluttz.
Deadline for nominations is Oct. 14.
The Governor will announce his choice the first week of December.
Only electronic submissions will be accepted.
Send nominations to: www.NCDCR.gov/PoetLaureate.

Governor's Circumvention 'Could Be Good Thing,' Says Network Director

This could be a good thing, in the long run," says Ed Southern, executive director of the North

Carolina Writers Network. He's talking about Gov. Pat McCrory's circumvention of standard

procedure in appointing the current poet laureate.

Such a bad thing could ever be a good thing?

"How often does poetry get this much press?" he asks. "How often does the poet laureate? Now, no one who's paying a lick of attention can claim not to know that we have used an effective process for selecting our poet laureate, that the laureate position is necessary and vital and much more than ceremonial, that poetry itself is necessary and vital and much more than pretty words, or that we have a community of writers in this state who will stand up and be heard.

"The bad thing would've been if this selection (or any new laureate) was met with a collective shrug." 

Former poets laureate take high road on McCrory's appointment

Kathryn Stripling Byer

Many poets in the state are incensed that Gov. Pat McCrory bypassed standard procedure in selecting Valerie Macon of Fuquay-Varina as the new N.C. poet laureate, to follow the current poet laureate Joseph Bathanti and serve the state for two years.

Macon, who's 64, and a graduate of Meredith College, has two poetry chapbooks that are self-published.

Other poets laureate, in this state and throughout the nation, typically have a stellar list of  publications, awards and honors.

But two former poets laureate, Kathryn Stripling Byer of Cullowhee and Fred Chappell of Greensboro, want to help support Macon.

"I feel it's part of my role as a former poet laureate to offer my assistance to the incoming poet laureate, no matter the violation of protocol that led to her selection," says Byer.

Chappell hopes that Macon's friends in the poetry community will show her the ropes and help her learn to talk to young kids about poetry.

"The idea (of being poet laureate)," he says, "is to spark interest in literature in general, in poetry in particular and in N.C. poetry especially. And to make sure the laureateship is representative and not just about herself."

That doesn't mean that Byer and Chappell are happy the governor circumvented policy.
Byer feels the violation damages our "strong literary reputation throughout the nation and damages the state of North Carolina."

Chappell calls the violation an "arbitrary seizure of power that's liable to result in unfortunate circumstances."