History of the Poetry Center Program
Established by the New Mexico legislature in 2019, the Poetry Center program was created within the Department of Cultural Affairs, and developed as a partnership between the New Mexico State Library and New Mexico Arts. The New Mexico Poetry Center which provides a creative poetry maker space for poets is located at the New Mexico State Library and is open to the public. The legislature also created the position of state Poet Laureate, which is 3-year term appointment. The poet laureate travels around the state, interacting with the people and poetries of NM, and collaborating with libraries and schools in every county. The Poet Laureate will document their explorations of New Mexico and will publish an anthology every three years, highlighting the many poets and cultures of New Mexico.
"Sometimes you have to drive through a river basin and a bracelet of cypress to find the center of forgetting.
It is practical to be sitting here, seeing down to acorns, unknotting into the umbrella of each tree.
The sky has not fallen, not yet. If you have to move to be still, be satisfied by this.
Let the world off the roughed-up edges of a stacked wall, each stone talking about what it cannot contain."