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SARATOGA SPRINGS — The Saratoga Springs Poet Laureate Committee has recommended Mayor Ron Kim appoint Joseph Bruchac III as Saratoga Springs’ First Poet Laureate. The appointment and inauguration will take place during City Council on Jan. 17.
Bruchac was born in Saratoga Springs and traces his maternal ancestry back to some of the earliest inhabitants, the Abenaki people. He has authored more than 180 books for adults and children, including Thirteen Moons on Turtle’s Back, Code Talker, and Rez Dogs. His honors include a Rockefeller Humanities Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Writing Fellowship for Poetry, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas.
The number of Poets Laureate positions in states, cities, U.S. Territories, and Tribal nations continues to increase, and according to poets.org, all but five states in the United States have established Poet Laureate positions.
In 1985, New York established a state poet laureate position. It is currently held by Willie Perdomo who was elected in 2021 to a two-year term. At least seven municipalities in the state boast poet laureate positions – Albany, Buffalo, Brooklyn, Queens, and The Bronx, among them.
The positions is an important way to honor a poet and recognize the place that poetry has in a state’s cultural tradition and civic life, with the poet named to the role serving as ambassador of the art form, literature, literacy, and storytelling.
Bruchac holds a B.A. from Cornell University, an M.A. in Literature and Creative Writing from Syracuse and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the Union Institute of Ohio, as well as several honorary doctorates. His work as an educator includes three years of teaching in West Africa, and eight years of directing a college program for Skidmore College inside a maximum security prison. With his late wife, Carol, he founded the Greenfield Review Literary Center and The Greenfield Review Press.
Bruchac was selected through a competitive nomination and interview process by members of the Poet Laureate Committee, chaired by Rachel R. Baum. His two-year term will run through December 2024.
