Texas

State Poet Laureate

In 1993, Texas established a state poet laureate position, which is currently held by Amanda Johnson.

City and County Poets Laureate

Corpus Christi

In 2021, Thomas Murphy was appointed the 2021-2022 poet laureate of Corpus Christi, Texas.

Dallas

In 2024, Mag Gabbert was named the second poet laureate of Dallas.

Houston

In 2023, Aris Kian Brown was appointed poet laureate of Houston, Texas. Schwartz will serve a two-year term.

McAllen

In 2023, Daniel García Ordaz was appointed as the poet laureate of McAllen, Texas. Ordaz will serve a one-year term.

Type	Title	State
Literary Organization	Writers in the Schools	Texas
Literary Magazine	Gulf Coast	Texas
Literary Organization	American Literary Translators Association	Texas
Small Press	Mutabilis Press	Texas
Literary Organization	Montgomery County Literary Arts Council	Texas
Literary Magazine	Southwest Review	Texas
Literary Organization	Poetry in the Arts	Texas
Literary Magazine	Translation Review	Texas
Literary Organization	Poetry Society of Texas	Texas
Small Press	Texas Review Press	Texas

Big Bend has been here, been here. Shouldn’t it have a say?
Call the mountains a wall if you must, (the river has never been a wall),
leavened air soaking equally into all, could this be the home
we ache for? Silent light bathing cliff faces, dunes altering
in darkness, stones speaking low to one another, border secrets,
notes so rooted you may never be lonely the same ways again.
Big bend in thinking—why did you dream you needed so much?
Water, one small pack. Once I lay on my back on a concrete table

Naomi Shihab Nye

2016

The Waltz We Were Born For

I never knew them all, just hummed
and thrummed my fingers with the radio,
driving five hundred miles to Austin.
Her arms held all the songs I needed.
Our boots kept time with fiddles
and the charming sobs of blondes,

the whine of steel guitars
sliding us down in deer-hide chairs
when jukebox music was over.
Sad music’s on my mind tonight
in a jet high over Dallas, earphones
on channel five. A lonely singer,

dead, comes back to beg me,
swearing in my ears she’s mine,
rhymes set to music that make
her lies seem true. She’s gone
and others like her, leaving their songs
to haunt us.

Walt McDonald

1999

Heart

Old fang-in-the-boot trick. Five-chambered
asp. Pit organ and puff adder. Can live
in any medium save ice. Charmed by the flute
or the first thunderstorm in spring, drowsy
heart stirs from the cistern, the hibernaculum,
the wintering den of stars. Smells like the cucumber
served chilled on chipped Blue Willow. Her garden
of clings, sugars, snaps, and strings. Her creamy breasts
we called pillows and her bird legs and fat fingers
covered with diamonds from the mines in Africa.

The smell of cucumber.... Her mystery roses....

Catherine Bowman

2006

Poetry Near You

Texas

Recent & Featured Listings

Naomi Shihab Nye

Leslie Contreras Schwartz

Cyrus Cassells

The Waltz We Were Born For

Heart

Poetry Near You

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Texas

Recent & Featured Listings

Naomi Shihab Nye

Leslie Contreras Schwartz

Cyrus Cassells

Related Poems

The Waltz We Were Born For

Heart

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