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Find poetry readings, workshops, festivals, conferences, literary organizations, and poetry-friendly bookstores, and learn more about poets laureate, in your area.

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Kentucky

State Poet Laureate

In 1926, Kentucky established a state poet laureate position, which is currently held by Silas House, who was appointed to a one-year term in 2023. 

Recent & Featured Listings

Type Title State
Literary Organization The Kentucky State Poetry Society Kentucky
Landmark Robert Penn Warren Birthplace Museum Kentucky
Literary Organization Green River Writers Kentucky
Literary Organization Kentucky Shakespeare Kentucky
Literary Magazine Appalachian Heritage Kentucky
Small Press Blair Mountain Press Kentucky
Literary Magazine The Louisville Review Kentucky
Small Press Sarabande Books Kentucky
Small Press Finishing Line Press Kentucky
Writing Program Western Kentucky University Kentucky

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Related Poets

  • bell hooks
    bell hooks

    bell hooks

    bell hooks (a.k.a Gloria Jean Watkins) was born on September 25, 1952, in Hopkinsville, Kentucky.

    Read more about >
  • Gayl Jones

    Gayl Jones

    Poet, fiction writer, and critic Gayl Jones was born in Lexington, Kentucky, on November 23, 1949, and raised in Speigle Heights, a neighborhood in

    Read more about >
  • Silas House
    Photo credit: C Williams

    Silas House

    Silas House is the 

    Read more about >

Related Poems

[ A ]

Long ago, in Kentucky, I, a boy, stood
By a dirt road, in first dark, and heard
The great geese hoot northward.

I could not see them, there being no moon
And the stars sparse. I heard them.

I did not know what was happening in my heart.

Robert Penn Warren
1985

to Ken Kesey & Ken Babbs

Clumsy at first, fitting together

the years we have been apart,

and the ways.

But as the night

passed and the day came, the first

fine morning of April,

it came clear:

the world that has tried us

and showed us its joy

was our bond

when we said nothing.

And we allowed it to be

with us, the new green

shining.

          *

Our lives, half gone,

stay full of laughter.

Wendell Berry
1985

One woman drives across five states just to see her. The woman being driven to has no idea anyone's headed her way. The driving woman crosses three bridges & seven lakes just to get to her door. She stops along the highway, wades into the soggy ground, cuts down coral-eyed cattails, carries them to her car as if they might be sherbet orange, long-stemmed, Confederate roses, sheared for Sherman himself. For two days she drives toward the woman in Kentucky, sleeping in rest areas with her seat lowered all the way back, doors locked. When she reaches the state line it's misting.

Nikky Finney
2011

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