I am pleased to announce that the Clark County Arts Commission has named me Clark County’s first Poet Laureate. I am very grateful to the commission for this honor, and look forward to this opportunity to share my passion for poetry with even more members of our community. I have a lot of ideas about how to do this, which I will share at the public meeting mentioned in the press release below, as well as a public address which I have been asked to give at the Vancouver Community Library on Tuesday, March 12 at 7pm. I encourage everyone who values poetry and its ability to transform our lives to join us in celebrating this great step forward for the county. I am very grateful for Vancouver’s poetry community, and for the love and support of three amazing women: Toni Partington, Mel Sanders, and Leah Jackson. Without their belief in me, and their own work for the arts community, none of this would have been possible.

Christopher Luna

February 15, 2013

Contact: Elizabeth Madrigal, Clark County Arts Commission, (360) 281-1615,

emadrigal@clarkcountyartscommission.org, Elizabeth.madrigal@gmail.com

Patricia LaCroix, Clark County Arts Commission, (360) 606-7104,

placroix@clarkcountyartscommission.org

Vancouver resident selected first Clark County Poet Laureate

Vancouver, WA – Christopher Luna, a Vancouver poet, visual artist and editor, has been named Clark County’s first Poet Laureate by the Clark County Arts Commission.

As Poet Laureate, Luna may act as a cultural ambassador, composing poems for special events and occasions. His main duty is to promote poetry and literature, nurturing public knowledge and appreciation of the power of words. His work will reflect diverse experiences in Clark County and the Vancouver-Portland metropolitan area.

The public can meet Luna when he is officially installed as Poet Laureate during the commission’s 6:30 p.m. meeting Tuesday, Feb. 26, in the sixth-floor hearing room of the Public Service Center, 1300 Franklin St.

Luna earned a Master of Fine Arts in Writing and Poetics at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University, Boulder, Colo. He serves as a writing consultant and poetry event coordinator for WSU Vancouver’s Writing Center, where he teaches a weekly workshop.

His work has appeared in New York Journal of Books, Poetry Project Newsletter, The Columbian, The Oregonian and Willamette Week. He co-edited Ghost Town Poetry, a collection of poems from a popular open microphone poetry reading series he established in 2004. Luna frequently is a featured reader at bookstores, night clubs, libraries and coffee shops.

For information about the Poet Laureate position, contact Pat LaCroix, chair of the arts commission, at (360) 606-7104. For more information on the arts commission visit www.clarkcountyartscommission.org.