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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Lake County’s poet laureate is among 23 nationwide who have been chosen by the Academy of American Poets as 2021 Poets Laureate Fellows.
The academy announced Thursday that Lake County Poet Laureate Georgina Marie Guardado of Lakeport has been selected as a member of this year’s fellows class.
“These 23 Poets Laureate Fellows will lead an extraordinary range of public poetry programs,” said Elizabeth Alexander, poet and president of the Mellon Foundation. “We are delighted to support them as they create their own poems, collaborate with other artists, and center poetry in their engagement with communities across our vast country — from urban to rural counties — while we collectively begin to process and reflect on the exceptional crises of the past year.”
The news came on the same day that the group of past Lake County poets emeriti announced that Guardado has been offered, and has accepted, a second term.
“I am honored and so moved by both the offer to extend my poet laureate role by two more years and by being awarded a Poets Laureate Fellowship by the Academy of American Poets,” Guardado told Lake County News. “The AAP fellowship is the largest financial supporter of poets in the nation and I have been following the academy for years, reading their poems on poets.org and on social media. I feel incredibly pleased to have my efforts and hard work recognized by such a prestigious organization and on a national scale. This will undoubtedly further my literary career as a poet and open so many doors for me. Not to mention, this is an amazing opportunity for poetry and the poetry community of Lake County.”
The academy is awarding a combined total of $1.1 million to the poets selected as fellows this year.
More than $100,000 also will be provided to 14 nonprofit organizations that have agreed to support the fellows’ proposed projects.
Guardado was selected as Lake County poet laureate in April of 2020, at the onset of the pandemic and shelter-in-place order.
She will receive $50,000 from the Academy of American Poets to install poetry boxes, poetry display cases, tiny poetry libraries and poetry murals in all 18 communities in Lake County.
She also plans to expand the project — with the permission and input of local tribal officials and peoples — the six Native American reservations in Lake County.
To complete the project, Guardado said she will engage government leaders, local poets, artists and youth.
“During the pandemic, I have strived to keep the literary momentum going in Lake County and both of these opportunities will allow me to continue doing so with time and financial support,” Guardado said. “For poets in our county of all ages and backgrounds, I hope this offers hope and inspiration that you can do anything you dream of even from a small, rural county as our own.”
Guardado will be able to carry out the project while she serves a second consecutive two-year term as Lake County poet laureate.
“Georgina has done a tremendous job promoting online poetry workshops and events during the pandemic,” said Lake County Poet Laureate Emeritus Carolyn Wing Greenlee. “The poets laureate feel that she deserves the experience of live events, including poet laureate events in California, as communities begin to reunite in the near future.”
The role of a poet laureate is to promote poetry, writing and literacy in the community they represent.
In Lake County, the poet laureate role began in 1998 with the installation of the first Lake County poet laureate, Jim Lyle, by the Board of Supervisors.
The Lake County poet laureate role is a volunteer one, with the selection process taking place every two years and conducted by the poets who previously held the post.
The next Lake County poet laureate search will take place in April of 2024.
In addition to Guardado, the 2021 Poets Laureate Fellows and the communities they serve are Marcus Amaker (Charleston, South Carolina), Semaj Brown (Flint, Michigan), Roscoe Burnems (Richmond, Virginia), Aileen Cassinetto (San Mateo County, California), Leslie Contreras Schwartz (Houston, Texas), Magdalena Gómez (Springfield, Massachusetts), Chasity Gunn (Elgin, Illinois), Kari Gunter-Seymour (Ohio), Luisa A. Igloria (Virginia), Angela Jackson (Illinois), Dasha Kelly Hamilton (Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Wisconsin state), Melissa Kwasny and M.L. Smoker (Montana), Bobby LeFebre (Colorado), Debra Marquart (Iowa), Trapeta B. Mayson (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), Anis Mojgani (Oregon), Chelsea Rathburn (Georgia), Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson (San Antonio, Texas), Lloyd Schwartz (Somerville, Massachusetts), M. Bartley Seigel (Upper Peninsula, Michigan) and Brian Sonia-Wallace (West Hollywood, California).
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