What does one do as the Ohio poet laureate?
Well, he drives, for one. Dave Lucas offered in a good-natured conversation via cell phone somewhere between Columbus and Cleveland. He’s been doing a lot of that since his term as the second-ever poet to hold the state title started in 2018.
“A lot of what I’ve been doing has been happening on the interstates and byways of the good state of Ohio, which has been really fun. Tedious, sometimes, but for the most part, a lot of fun.”
“My philosophy is to try to say yes to every invitation that’s come in,” Lucas continued. “In 2018, that meant just north of 50 events throughout the state. I don’t know where I am so far this year, but I think by the time I’m done, I’ll have put about 10 to 12,000 miles on the car.”
State legislators established the poet laureateship in 2014 as a means of celebrating and fostering poetry throughout the state. In addition to engaging in public readings and events, like the ones that have kept the current laureate so often behind the wheel, he or she is tasked with undertaking a significant self-styled project in the course of the two-year term.
Amit Majmudar, a diagnostic nuclear radiologist from central Ohio, began his inaugural term as poet laureate in 2016. Mr. Lucas, a university instructor from northeast Ohio, began his own in 2018. As Mr. Lucas looks toward the end of his term in December, 2019, the Ohio Arts Council is beginning to look toward the third poet to make his or her mark on the state.
The Ohio Arts Council is currently accepting nominations through 5 p.m. July 8. Gov. Mike DeWine will begin to consider at least three finalists by Oct. 1; the new poet laureate will begin their term in 2020. For details and application information, go to oac.ohio.gov.
While the half dozen or so members of the selection committee are not yet seated, they’re sure to consider the quality of any nominee’s body of work, said Justin Nigro, the council’s operations and public affairs director. Both Mr. Majmudar and Mr. Lucas came to the position as celebrated and published poets.
But it’s also a public-facing role that asks nominees to engage with the statewide community, Mr. Nigro said; their ideas on how they would do this are also an important consideration.
“It’s really an interesting position,” Mr. Nigro said, “in that they both are promoting an appreciation of poetry and also representing the best of what our state has to offer.”
For Mr. Lucas, who holds a bachelor’s degree in English from John Carroll University, a master of fine arts degree in creative writing from the University of Virginia, and a doctorate degree in English from the University of Michigan, a part of his philosophical approach to the position has been to change the way people think about poetry.
“While it’s important to me that people think of poetry within traditional quote-unquote poems,” he said, “it’s also about everyday language, the metaphors that we use, the slang that we use, all those elements in which language takes on an artistic function or an aesthetic function.”
He said he had potential audiences in mind in shaping his project for the laureateship, a syndicated column that’s run monthly in statewide media. Based on a course he teaches at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, it’s “Poetry for People who Hate Poetry.”
He isn’t in that category himself, but he said it’s been good to think in that mind-set. It’s “a good way of reminding oneself why you’re doing it in the first place, to get back to those ideas about what is it that I believe about why poetry is worthwhile in the first place,” he said.
The laureateship is set up so that a poet can largely shape it in their vision. The laureateship of Mr. Majmudar, who notably arranged collaborative dance-poetry events during his tenure, looks different than that of Mr. Lucas. He in turn said he’s excited to see where the next poet takes it.
As for him?
He’s looking toward more writing and teaching. And, he added with a laugh, “dealing with the return from relative obscurity to absolute obscurity.”
First Published June 21, 2019, 7:30 p.m.
