Fort Collins Poet Laureate

FORT COLLINS POET LAUREATE

We started the Poet Laureate program in 2011 to foster a deeper understanding and appreciation of poetry in Fort Collins. Each year we accept nominations from the public, and a panel of local poets and writers choose the top candidates which are then put to a public vote. The Poet Laureate hosts free monthly workshops, readings, and other community events. To be eligible, poets must live in Fort Collins, and be willing to serve the community in the name of poetry. Past poet laureates have held readings, published poems, visited schools, and led workshops. The current poet will serve from July 2020 – July 2022, and will be involved in the selection of the next poet laureate. The current poet received a $250 honorarium supported by the Jason Sheppard Greer and Lucy Kim Greer Foundation for the Arts.

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2022-2024 Poet Laureate

Our Current Poet Laureate is Alley Eden. Ally Eden (ig: @gato_hato, allyeden.com) is a self-taught poet and interdisciplinary artist with a focus on sound, performance, and community.  In the footsteps of writers such as bell hooks and Alok Vaid-Menon, she considers herself part of a love poetry movement seeking to “end the international crisis of loneliness” by employing love as a bridge across difference and poetry as a vehicle for loving.

Ally believes creativity is both contagious and playful and that connection is the catalyst by which we can co-create a world where everyone thrives. Often blurring the line between spectator and creator, Ally invites all to a shared exploration of themes like human connection and ecology, intimacy, activism, and nonconformity.  

Goal as Poet Laureate

As poet laureate, Ally envisions a place for everyone in poetry and will strive to open spaces and opportunities for collaboration across disciplines, ages, languages, abilities and taste.  

You can see/hear Ally’s work by following her on instagram, frequenting the Wolverine, or bumping into her late at night in damp grassy knolls where street cats congregate. When she’s not working on her own words, she’s relaying them for others as an English/Spanish interpreter.

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Previous Poets Laureate