Town of Chapel Hill opens application for next poet laureate

The Town of Chapel Hill is now accepting applicants for its next poet laureate. The selected poet will work as an ambassador for poetry in the community from January 2025 to December 2026, putting on events, including open mics and workshops. 

The poet laureate also writes and performs for community occasions, and helps run the town's events for poetry month each April, Darien Cropper, the communications coordinator for Chapel Hill Community Arts and Culture, said.

CJ Suitt, who served as the town's first poet laureate, said that the position was created in 2019 in order to show support for the arts and recognize Chapel Hill’s history of poetry, including the town's connection with important poets like George Moses Horton, the first African American man to publish a book in the South. 

As poet laureate, Suitt wrote a piece for the renaming of the Howard and Lillian Lee Transit Operations Center, honoring Howard Lee, the town’s first Black mayor, and his wife, Lillian Lee, who established the first hospital school at NC Memorial.

The next poet laureate will serve for two years and receive $6,000 of compensation paid throughout the term. The position also allows them to showcase their work to a larger audience, the town’s current poet laureate, Cortland Gilliam, said.

Gilliam is currently a PhD student at the UNC School of Education, and also attended UNC as an undergraduate. His main advice to those applying is to think deeply about why they want the position.

“I think with it being attached to a town, there's politics that you have to be aware of involved, but it's also an opportunity to engage in something that is really serving community,” he said. 

Applicants must have a personal or professional connection to Chapel Hill, but they do not necessarily have to live in the town. They must also have had some kind of active poetry projects in the last five years, and Cropper said that applying would be a great way for poets to share their work.

“I think this is just a great way to put yourself out there and get your poetry out there and share what you have to say with everyone in our community,” she said. “I think it's a really special role, and it's something that we're really excited about, and we hope the community is too.” 

Suitt said he hopes the next poet laureate will continue the work he and Gilliam have done by building connections between Chapel Hill’s different artistic communities.

Chapel Hill's strong artistic community benefits from past laureates' ability to perform and speak to the community, Cropper said, something she is very impressed with.  

"I think that they've done an excellent job of kind of bringing the community together, seeing different perspectives, and also creating a space where it's really safe for the public to feel like they can express themselves through this form of art," she said. 

Suitt said that he believes Chapel Hill can be a little overwhelming for the everyday poet because of its strong arts focus — which is, to him, why the position is important.

"I hope that they will be able to sort of build bridges between that sort of community of artists who are in our museums, and artists who are living in the community,” Suitt said. “And that they will do that, not only with their words, but just who they are and how they show up in the community.”

The deadline to apply is Monday, Sept 9. at 5 p.m., and more information can be found at the Chapel Hill Community Arts website, along with a copy of the application.

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