Arts Commission names new State Poet Laureate

The Indiana Arts Commission recently named George Kalamaras as the new Indiana State Poet Laureate.

“I am deeply honored with this appointment and absolutely thrilled to serve the people and state of Indiana in this way,” Kalamaras said in a press release.

The professor of English at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne is the author of six books of poetry and earned a doctorate in English from State University of New York at Albany.

He has published more than 725 poems in the U.S. and abroad.

Kalamaras has received numerous past awards for his work, including a Creative Writing Poetry Fellowship Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and two Individual Artist Fellowship Grants from the Indiana Arts Commission.

His book “Kingdom of Throat-Stuck Luck” won the Elixir Press Poetry Contest, and “the Theory and Function of Mangoes” won the Four Way Books Intro Series.

The State Poet Laureate Program was officially created in 2005 when Gov. Mitch Daniels signed legislation that aimed to increase poetry awareness.

“The vocation of poetry is not about individual accolades. Although, I am humbled and most pleased with this honor,” Kalamaras said.

“However, I see poetry as an act of loving service — to people, to animals and the planet, and to the culture at large.”

Joyce Brinkman was the first State Poet Laureate from July 2005 to June 2008, followed by Norbert Krapf and Karen Kovacik.

The duties of the Poet Laureate include making presentations at educational facilities and promoting poetry to schools and communities across Indiana.
 
Kalamaras was chosen by a special selection committee after a statewide call for nominations.

His term as Poet Laureate will run through the end of next year, and he succeeds fellow poet Karen Kovacik.

“I look forward to serving as Poet Laureate and am grateful beyond words for the faith the Indiana Arts Commission has already shown in me,” he said.

In addition to his contributions to poetry in the U.S., Kalamaras has worked extensively abroad.

He spent several months conducting research in India after being awarded an Indo-U.S. Advanced Research Fellowship in 1994.

He said he views poetry as an act of love and service.

“Poetry grants us the opportunity to practice a meaning-making activity in which the smaller sense of self eventually dissolves into a more expansive self with a larger sense of purpose beyond the
individual,” he said.

— Rachel Osman