Grace and Hustle

Questions and Answers about Tacoma’s New Poet Laureate

Illustration by Demian Johnston for City Arts

Tacoma can now make this unwieldy but proud claim: it is the first midsized municipality north of San Francisco and west of Denver to recognize its own poet laureate. Thank Urban Grace, a downtown church that came up with the idea and ponied up
the dough to bring the position about.

What follows are answers to some questions readers may have about the role of poetry in the city and how the process of choosing a poet laureate works.

Why does Tacoma need a poet laureate?

The idea was the brainchild of Kali Kucera, who worked at the time as director of music and the arts for Urban Grace. Kali and Pastor Tad Monroe convinced the church leaders to put up one thousand dollars of prize money for a poetry contest and pay for some communications. “I think Tacoma is becoming a center for the arts,” said Monroe. “For me poetry has to be included as one of the central artistic expressions of this city.” Tad added that poetry allows both the poet and the listener to give voice to difficult things that are too painful to say in everyday speech. “And Tacoma has its share of pain.”

Who made the choice?

Here’s how the contest played out: Urban Grace sent out a press release and distributed posters around town. The rules: submit a poem that captures the soul of Tacoma and describe what you would do as poet laureate to promote poetry within the community. The prize: one thousand dollars, plus the opportunity and obligation to hold two poetry workshops and read twenty-six poems at Urban Grace throughout the year.

Urban Grace received around twenty submissions. “Most were really good,” said Tad, who was not one of the judges. The group of male and female applicants ranged in age from early twenties to mid-eighties, and the writing styles ranged from rhyme to free verse.

“We figured, we plan on doing this every year, so if we end up with someone some people don’t like, just wait a year and we’ll do it again,” said Monroe.

The judges — Holly Wolfe, Daniel Blue, Rosalind Bell and Lynn Martin — were not given any background information on the poets. Names did not appear on the manuscripts they read. The winner: William Kupinse.

Who is this guy?

First of all, Kupinse looks like James Spader from the “sex, lies and videotape” era, but with less spectacular hair. Originally from Easton, Connecticut, he is an associate professor of English at the University of Puget Sound.  “I was honored, humbled and surprised,” said Kupinse. “Tacoma has a great emerging arts scene. It feels like this will be a place people will be talking about within a few years.”

Have the native-born poets given Kupinse a hard time?

No. But they’re poets, not street fighters. “I like him a lot,” said Connie Walle, a local poet and the driving force behind Puget Sound Poetry Connection, a Tacoma poetry organization. Walle admits she’s partial to local literary icons Sam Green and Tess Gallagher, but about Kupinse she says, “He’s cooperative. He’s willing to get out there and hustle, which is hard when you’re teaching full-time. I think that’s really admirable.”

Why is the secular office of a poet laureate sponsored by a Christian church?

Here’s how Pastor Tad Monroe explained it: “We haven’t approached this with the idea of putting any parameters around the poetry. Bill has been very respectful to do urban poetry that isn’t offensive to anyone. But we also make sure he isn’t being stifled.”

“I have yet to edit anything for Urban Grace, but I keep the audience in mind,” said Kupinse. “My method isn’t to try to shock people.” Is it good? Judge for yourself (see sidebar).

Kupinse didn’t attend Urban Grace before the contest, but spirituality is a core issue for him, although he won’t claim any particular faith. “I’m not trying to be evasive,” he said. “I simply prefer to talk in terms of the spiritual, as opposed to the denominational.” 

What does a poet laureate do all day?

Kupinse’s professorial day job keeps him plenty busy. This quarter, he’s teaching three courses — Literature and the Environment, Introduction to Writing Poetry and Writing and the Environmental Imagination. About his poetry class, Kupinse quotes W. B. Yeats: “A line will take us hours, maybe.” Kupinse’s point is that the writing of poetry takes “fierce attention and substantial effort.”

Monroe and Walle would agree that substantial effort is what Kupinse has also put into the office of poet laureate. Aside from the twenty-six readings at Urban Grace, he’s taught a workshop at Tacoma Art Museum and is planning one at UPS early next year. That fulfills the official duties.

But once the word gets out that you’re poet laureate, the requests for your services start rolling in. So far, Kupinse has written a poem to celebrate the Bill of Rights for the Pierce County ACLU. He penned another for a Pierce County AIDS Foundation event. He’s spoken to writing students at Tacoma’s School of the Arts, read poetry at an Urban Grace–sponsored arts camp, read at a Tacoma Food Co-Op fundraiser and judged a black-out poem contest for the Tacoma News Tribune, where participants created poems by blacking out unwanted words from a section of the Trib. And that’s just for starters.

“It’s a heckuva good deal for one thousand dollars,” said Monroe. “Maybe in the future they’ll start asking for more.”

His favorite experience so far?

Local NPR station KXOT asked Kupinse to record a series of poems about Tacoma in a variety of locations where audio would factor into the reading. So far, Kupinse has recorded a poem about Point Defiance in the woods there. He did another at the Cushman electrical substation. “The space is beautiful,” he says of the substation. “It hums.” And he recorded a poem called “Blast” down on Ruston Way by the Silver Cloud Inn.

What did the poetry scene in Tacoma look like before the poet laureate era?

Ask Connie Walle. “When I first met Bill, we talked about the Tacoma poetry scene. He said we should get some readings going. I told him PSPC has had readings going for seventeen years.”

Walle is talking about Puget Sound Poetry Connection, which holds monthly readings and open mics at King’s Books the second Friday of every month. They often draw crowds of thirty-five to forty poets. “Seattle would kill for crowds like that at a reading,” said Walle, “but for some reason, it’s really hard to get any publicity.”

Kupinse, who has enthusiastically promoted PSPC’s events, hopes the poet laureate position will help to change that. “The position should act as a focal point for all the literary arts activities that are already happening in Tacoma.” It may work. Tacoma’s poet laureate post has already received more press in its short existence than Walle’s group has received in years.