Poet Laureate Kathryn Stripling Byer

Gov. Michael F. Easley appointed Kathryn Stripling Byer, of Cullowhee, to be North Carolina's poet laureate on February 24, 2005. As poet laureate, Ms. Byer serves as an ambassador of North Carolina literature, past and present. She succeeded Fred Chappell.
"Kathryn's talents have earned her many honors and awards, and I know she will be an outstanding representative of North Carolina's rich literary arts," Governor Easley said at the time of her appointment. "She will be an important connection between our writing community and the public."

Ms. Byer participates in public events, curates features on poetry and other aspects of North Carolina literature for the North Carolina Arts Council's web site, and hopes to organize creative writing workshops for North Carolina schools using the state's distance-learning facilities. She also writes poems commemorating occasions of historic or cultural importance. Ms. Byer is serving a two-year term, renewable at the governor's discretion.

Subsidies for Ms. Byer's public activities (readings, workshops, and so forth) are available to nonprofit organizations through the North Carolina Arts Council. For information, send an e-mail message to Jeff Pettus at jeff.pettus@ncdcr.gov.

Click here for print and audio versions of Ms. Byer's poem, "Her Daughter," which appears in the November, 2005, issue of The Atlantic.