Governor Tina Kotek has appointed Ellen Waterston of Bend to a second term as Poet Laureate of Oregon. A celebrated poet/writer, educator and speaker who founded the Writing Ranch and the Waterston Desert Writing Prize, Waterston will serve a second two-year term ending in August 2028. Waterston is Oregon’s 11th Poet Laureate, first appointed to the role in 2024.
“Ellen has embraced the role, visiting 23 of the state’s 36 counties in the past two years,” Governor Kotek said. “In this time of division, both real and perceived, Ellen has been an effective ambassador in uniting Oregonians and reminding us of what we share. I look forward to seeing her continue to harness her artistry to build a stronger sense of community across Oregon.”
In less than two years, Waterston has crisscrossed the state to present 84 poetry readings and workshops in 39 Oregon communities.
“It’s a particular honor to be in this role at this time in our state and nation’s history,” Waterston said. “I’ve come to realize that my job is to showcase poetry in all its forms as a catalyst for mutual understanding.”
At a recent appearance in Prineville, for example, a participant’s question about whether poetry is supposed to rhyme prompted a discussion about the poetic forms shaped by different cultures and places, including cowboy poetry. “It developed into the most wonderful, robust conversation about all the different poetry forms, from sonnet to slam,” Waterston said. “It was one more instance of the delightful and unexpected interactions that result while traveling the state in the name of poetry.”
In her second term, Waterston plans to pursue two complementary projects in addition to continuing to deliver workshops and presentations. The first, Poetry in Public Places (abbreviated P!PP), encourages communities in Oregon to display poems in unexpected locations, “from poetry walks to permanent art installations,” she explained. She will explore pathways for poets to engage public art in Oregon and will enlist the involvement of public and private construction and remodeling projects to do the same. In the second project she will share the podium wherever she goes with a young poet from that community. Writing from those poets will be included in an anthology of young Oregon poets with the working title Meet Me on the Divide. Waterston said, “The poems in this anthology will form a daisy chain north to south, and up and over the Cascades.”
In April, National Poetry Month, Waterston is scheduled to appear at the Hood River Library on April 4; at Coos Bay Library on April 9; at Larkspur Community Center in Bend on April 21; at Rogue Writers Collective in Grants Pass on April 25; and at Western Oregon University in Monmouth on April 30.
Later this year, Waterston will deliver a poem commissioned for the one-hundredth anniversary of the Astoria Column in July, and in August will help welcome U.S. Poet Laureate Arthur Sze for the opening of the new East Bend branch of Deschutes Public Library. For a complete schedule of upcoming appearances, visit writingranch.com or oregonhumanities.org/events.
“It is truly an honor to meet with people all over the state,” Waterston said. “I am so very grateful to Governor Kotek for the opportunity to continue to share my love of poetry and place with Oregonians for a second term.”
Much of Waterston’s award-winning poetry and prose is inspired by the remote reaches of southeastern Oregon’s outback. Her five poetry titles include the just-released As Far as I Can Anthem, featuring poems largely written during her first term as Poet Laureate. Others are I Am Madagascar, Between Desert Seasons, Vía Lactéa and Hotel Domilocos. Waterston is also the author of four literary nonfiction titles: her most recent are We Could Die Doing This: Dispatches on Ageing from Oregon’s Outback and Walking the High Desert: Encounters with Rural America Along the Oregon Desert Trail.
In addition to her work as an author, Waterston founded the for-profit Writing Ranch, which offers retreats and workshops for established and emerging writers, and the Bend-based literary arts nonprofit The Nature of Words, which she directed for over a decade. She subsequently founded the Waterston Desert Writing Prize, annually recognizing a nonfiction book proposal that examines the role of deserts in the human narrative, now a program of the High Desert Museum. She has taught creative writing at middle through graduate school levels and authored the original feasibility study for the OSU-Cascades Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing.
Her work as an author and literary arts advocate was earlier recognized with an honorary Ph.D. in humane letters from OSU-Cascades and, in 2024, with both Literary Arts’ Stewart H. Holbrook Award at the Oregon Book Awards and Soapstone’s Bread and Roses Award. “We celebrate Ellen Waterston for her work creating a vibrant literary life east of the Cascades,” wrote Soapstone. “She created unique and important events; focused attention on the literature of the High Desert, mentored numerous writers, while writing poetry and nonfiction works that have become an essential part of the literature of Oregon and the West.”
Waterston received her BA from Harvard University and MA in archaeology from the University of Madagascar. She has three children and three grandchildren and resides in Bend.
The Oregon Poet Laureate fosters the art of poetry, encourages literacy and learning, addresses central issues relating to humanities and heritage, and reflects on public life in Oregon. The program is funded by the Oregon Cultural Trust.
Past Oregon Poets Laureate are: Edwin Charles Markham (1921-1940); Ben Hur Lampman (1951-1954); Ethel Romig Fuller (1957-1965); William Stafford (1974-1989); Lawson Inada (2006-2010); Paulann Petersen (2010-2014); Peter Sears (2014-2016); Elizabeth Woody (2016-2018); Kim Stafford (2018-2020); and Anis Mojgani (2020-2024).
Waterston will begin her second term this August. To learn more about the Oregon Poet Laureate program visit the Poet Laureate website.
By Ben Waterhouse
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