A 2023 Poet Laureate’s Retrospective

In April of 2022, I became Anaheim’s Poet Laureate. I am at the tail end of my two-year term which will end in April of 2024. I am often asked what a poet laureate is and what I do on the job. I thought I’d write about my year for those poets who might consider applying for a poet laureate position in their own city. While being a poet laureate is an unpaid position, it can have its rewards due to the title carrying some weight in literary communities.

BASIC DUTIES

When I took on the role of Poet Laureate in 2022, I had a good idea of what to expect of my duties. Due to the pandemic, my hiring took over two years to process and while I waited to see if I would or would not become the next Anaheim Poet Laureate, I did research. I attended many speaking events by other poets laureate about what they did on the job. It gave me many ideas of what I could do should the role come to pass.

During my job interview, I was told the city wanted to maintain a social media presence for the role and to publish an anthology of poetry for local Anaheim poets. I was asked to attend the monthly poetry Open-Mic at the library and act as its supporter.

After I took on the role, I was also approached by the Anaheim Library to coordinate one of their flagship events called “Indie Author Day” that takes place in November.

These tasks would become the backbone of what I do as a poet laureate. I was given an Instagram and Facebook social media by the city and asked to create video for the city YouTube when possible. The anthology would not happen until 2023 since I needed time to get the project developed.

OPEN-MIC

The chief pleasure of the job has proven to be attending and supporting the monthly Open-Mic at Anaheim Central Library. I was no stranger there. I had been attending this event on and off since its start in 2018. I first learned of the Anaheim Open-Mic via dismissive chatter at other reader series. They laughed at the first poet laureate of Anaheim and his upstart reading series. That made me curious. Why the fuss? So I popped in to check it out myself. What I discovered were people of the community reading essays, beginner poetry, and guitar playing. The librarians running the open-mic were friendly, the space welcoming, and yes, a poet laureate was there in residence. I saw nothing to laugh at. The event was not well attended back then, but since it was bi-monthly and new, that meant nothing was wrong, it was simply starting. I stayed and gave it a chance.

When I came onboard as the new poet laureate in 2022, people at the open-mic were stunned. They were used to me hanging out in the back by myself. I’m an older woman, short, and not the most beautiful. I’m used to being invisible except for my writing and coordination skills. Suddenly, they were all looking at me with fresh eyes. Another change when I arrived as poet laureate is the library switched the open-mic from bi-monthly to monthly.

All through 2022, things went on as usual. Our attendance went up and down. The poetry readings were all of an amateur level except for our featured speakers. We lost our former librarian organizer, but her assistant Don Hillard proved to be a capable replacement. As Poet Laureate, I gave him advice as a more experienced writer and poet, plus helped him find features for our event. However, I always stepped back and didn’t push for choices. The final decisions were up to him as our coordinator. As the city had asked, I acted as support.

ANTHOLOGY

One reason I was selected as the Anaheim Poet Laureate is my previous experience as a poetry anthology editor. I’ve been the editor of the anthology “Eccentric Orbits: an anthology of science fiction poetry” put out by the Canadian small press Dimensionfold Publishing. We have a lovely group of speculative poets associated with the series and working with this publisher has been pleasant. We published our fourth issue in 2023 and hope to do another next year.

I have also been a one-time guest editor of “Eye To The Telescope”, an on-line speculative poetry journal sponsored by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA). This is a prominent publication in speculative poetry circles and it certainly proved to be a learning experience. I had around 700 poets submit to the magazine. Due to budget, I could only accept around 20. I learned to make hard choices as an editor.

As Poet Laureate, I was tasked with creating and publishing a poetry anthology for our local poet community. In 2023, I put out a call for poets, selected the poetry, formatted the book, designed its cover, and hired a printer. The Anaheim Poetry Review debuted in April of 2023.

APR is a little peculiar. The city insisted I could not sell the anthology, but as poet laureate I could print a limited run to allow the publication to be in our library branches and to provide credit and copy to our poets. With these restrictions, I determined a free to read digital version needed to happen, and since the poets could not be compensated, I would nominate them for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize Awards. Another factor is the city required me to create a public event in our library during National Poetry Month in April, so I held the launch party for APR that month to fulfill this requirement.

Of all the duties I perform for the city, I feel the Anaheim anthology was the most impactful. Before the anthology, poetry was a hobby for most of our monthly poetry open-mic attendees. But after seeing their names in print and later being nominated for literary awards, they took on a new view of poetry. In the summer, after the publication of our anthology, there was a noticeable uptick in the quality of work being read at the open-mic. Not from more professional poets coming in, but due to the increase of writing ability of our local poets. It has been a genuine pleasure as their poet laureate to watch them unfold their wings and share their voices in the community.

WORKSHOPS

I’ve been a workshop instructor at various large science fiction conventions for many years. My poetry specialty is speculative poetry in the form of scifaiku. This is science fiction or astronomy themed haiku poetry. I’ve also been an instructor at Lit Cleveland and at local writing groups in my area.

I proposed to my Library Liaison that I would like to teach once a month at various Anaheim library branches until I’ve taught at each one once or twice a year. I’ve mainly done generative poetry workshops, but I also have taught my class on writing Scifaiku, a workshop on how to create a poetry or short story collections, and gave an introductory talk about myself as the new Poet Laureate for the city. All total, I have taught at five branches of our library system.

PERSONAL APPEARANCES

One of the principal duties of a poet laureate is to speak and give readings to the public. Before I took on the role, I was already rather busy at conventions as a writer and poet in my genre. However, much of my appearances this year shifted local due to my role. I will give you a listing of this year’s appearances to give you an idea of the workload.

Live Appearances:

• Collage — Speculative Poetry Reading & Discussion (SFPA Panel) I was coordinator and a reader
• Gallifrey One — Book Signing & Table
• East Anaheim Library — “Prompts to Poetry Workshop”
• East Anaheim Library — “Children’s Career Talk — Poet & Writer with Anaheim Poet Laureate Wendy Van Camp”
• Anaheim City Council Chambers — “Proclamation of National Poetry Month” — An accounting of my duties as poet laureate and a short poetry reading
• AnaCon: Anaheim Library’s Science Fiction Day — Table & Poetry Panel coordinator & reader
• LitFest in the Dena (Literary Book Festival) — “Imaginative Verse” Panel Coordinator & Reader
• Wrightwood Arts & Wine Festival — Book Signing and Poetry Slam
• SD Comic Con Art Show — exhibiting poetry art
• Anaheim Central Open-Mic — Featured Reader
• Poet Laureate Wendy Van Camp Appears at the Muzeo — “Every Word Matters: Using Poetry Concepts To Enrich Your Prose”, followed by a reading, Q&A, and book signing
• Anaheim Euclid Library — “Prompts to Poetry Workshop”
• OLLi Poetry for Pleasure Class — “Life as a Poet”
• San Diego Who Convention — Book Signing & 1 poetry workshop
• Indie Author Day — Coordinator, 1 workshop, 1 reading, & book signing

Virtual Appearances:

Conventions/Conferences/Podcasts:

• Flights of Foundry — 6 panels & taught 1 poetry workshop
• IASFS India’s 22st Annual Science Fiction Conference — 1 presentation
• Balitcon 57–3 panels & 1 reading
• ReaderCon — Presentation: “Every Word Matters: Using Poetry Concepts To Enrich Your Prose”, followed by a live Q&A.
• Pemmi-Con/NASFiC — 5 panels & 1 workshop
• Small Publishing in a Big Universe Podcast — “Speculations on Poetry Panel”
• Speculative Sandbox with Viki Lan Interview — “Episode #53: Scifaiku & Astropoetry”

Con-Tinual Podcasts (Panel Discussions):

• The Panel Room Episode 159 — Podcasting for authors
• Fandom — The Mandalorian
• Fandom — Star Trek: The Next Generation
• Fandom — Lost Conventions
• Fandom — Farscape
• Fandom — Classic Sci-Fi
• Fandom — Star Trek: Voyager
• Fandom — The Wizard of Oz
• The Panel Room Episode 175 — Time Travel & Multiverses

Journal Interviews:

• David Leonhardt Interview — “What is a Poet Laureate” with fellow poets laureate Juan Perez, Barbara Southard, and PJ Yukon
• Claire Buss Interview — “A Slice of Cake: an interview with Poet Laureate Wendy Van Camp”

PUBLICATIONS

Anthologies:

• Anaheim Poetry Review
• Eccentric Orbits 4: a science fiction poetry anthology

Indie Author Magazine:

• Ten Tips: Twitter
• Ten Tips: Google Workspace
• Exploring Flights of Foundry: A Virtual Sci-Fi Convention
• Goggles and Gadgets: Analyzing the Elements that Keep Steampunk Stories in Motion
• Time for Show and Tell: Reexamining the Golden Rule of Fiction

Misc Journals:

• The Starlight Scifaiku Review, Spring 2023 — “Cosmological Speed” and “Ode to James Webb”
• Eccentric Orbits 4 — “Purchased on Ebay: a series of science haiku”
• Star*Line — “[reject mother’s hand]”
• AnaCon Zine 2023–3 scifaiku poems
• Star*Line — “UAP: a nonet”

As you can see, the workload for this role is considerable. Before you decide to apply for your local poet laureate role, you need to decide if you have the time to do the work. Thankfully, as a full-time writer and poet, I could work in my duties seamlessly.

My only regrets for the year are not having as much time for family and friends as I would like, less time for actual writing, and the complete loss of my watercolor painting and urban sketching hobby. But all these things will wait for me when my role ends in April 2024.

What I consider my top accomplishments for 2023:

1. Being invited as a single feature at ReaderCon.
2. Coordinating a panel and appearing at “LitFest in the Dena”, my first local literary festival.
3. Being invited and appearing at ISFAS India and having my presentation not only mentioned later in Locus Magazine, but included with my headshot!
4. Accepting the Proclamation for National Poetry Month before the Anaheim City Council.
5. Mentoring so many budding poets in my community as they go through the steps of being published for the first time.

Thank you for reading a retrospective of my year of being a poet laureate. We need poets laureate out in the world to inspire the next generation of poets and writers. If you feel you have mentoring and community organizing skills, I hope you will pay it forward and join your local poetry community as their Poet Laureate.

If you want to view the listed podcasts, read the interviews, or learn more details about my appearances, all are listed in the writing credits on my portfolio website: https://wendyvancamp.com

. . .

Wendy Van Camp is the Poet Laureate for the City of Anaheim, California. Her work is influenced by cutting edge technology, astronomy, and daydreams. She is a nominated finalist for the Elgin Award, a Pushcart Prize, and for a Dwarf Stars Award. Her poems, stories, and articles have appeared in: “Star*Line”, “Scifaikuest”, and “Indy Author Magazine”, among many others. She is the editor of two annual poetry anthologies “Eccentric Orbits” and “Anaheim Poetry Review”, and a guest editor for the SFPA’s “Eye To The Telescope”. She is a graduate of the Ad Astra Speculative Fiction Workshop and a member of SFWA, Codex, SFPA, and IBPA. Find her books on all major online retailers. Learn more at http://wendyvancamp.com

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