So. This is the news. I've been named the next poet laureate of Maine.

I went up to Augusta yesterday, where Governor Janet Mills formally introduced me at the state's annual poetry month celebration. I stood in the Hall of Flags in the Maine Capitol. I was hugged by the governor. There was a standing ovation. I had to give interviews to the press. I have never in my life been in such a situation. As you can see, the experience has made my sentences choppy. The afternoon was hallucinatory, and I kept thinking I was in the wrong dream.

What can I say? Of course I am so happy and excited, equally nervous and impostery, also sure that I've bitten off way more than I can chew. And there's sorrow too--that Baron isn't here to know, that Ray isn't here to know: those two beloveds who, in such different ways, needled me into my life.

My five-year term doesn't officially begin until July, but I'll be busy before then, confabbing with Julia, our outgoing laureate, trying to find my footing in this more public realm.

And I can't help but think of my first years here in Maine: when I was laden with babies and homestead, when the poems first began to announce themselves. The governor read one of my poems at the event, and of all of them she chose this: my Maine origin story. It was happenstance, yet I woke this morning feeling as if I'd received a message from myself.

Home

 

So wild it was when we first settled here.

Spruce roots invaded the cellar like thieves.

Skunks bred on the doorstep, cluster flies jeered.

Ice-melt dripped shingles and screws from the eaves.

We slept by the stove, we ate meals with our hands.

At dusk we heard gunshots, and wind and guitars.

We imagined a house with a faucet that ran

From a well that held water. We canvassed the stars.

If love is an island, what map was our hovel?

Dogs howled on the mainland, our cliff washed away.

We hunted for clues with a broken-backed shovel.

We drank all the wine, night dwindled to grey.

When we left, a flat sunrise was threatening snow,

But the frost heaves were deep. We had to drive slow.

[from Same Old Story (CavanKerry Press, 2014)]