Poet Laureates Around the Nation:
Jonathan Holden
Poet Laureate, Kansas
On Writing: I was always writing, making up stories.
Inspirations: I was looking for adventure.
Challenges: It’s never ending, the challenge to glimpse something freshly and communicate that freshness.
Turning Points: Winning my first award, The Devins Award in 1972, and realizing that I might make a career as a writer.
Mentors: The poet Reg Saner, in Colorado; the poet William Wordsworth and his “spots of time,” in The Prelude.
Favorite books/poems: Traveling through the Dark by William Stafford, the book and the poem.
Advice to youth: Read as widely as possible and when you find a poem you love, memorize it. There are books which suggest literary agents. Look through one. Think of a book you love and find out who that writer’s agent is. Contact that agent. We’re all, in the end, in the same club.#
