Houston is looking for its next poet laureate. Hereโs how you can apply.
Gwen Zepeda, Houston's 2013-2015 poet laureate, at the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Conference XV in February 2020. HOUSTON โ The Mayorโs Office and the Office of Cultural Affairs is looking for the next poet laureate to celebrate Houstonโs culture and diversity through literature. Serving as the cityโs ambassador for literary arts, the goal for the Poet Laureate is to represent Houston by creating excitement about poetry through outreach, programs, teaching, and written work, the Office of Cultural Affairs said. Poet laureates will serve a two-year term and the current term will begin in April. The serving poet laureate will receive a total honorarium of $20,000 over the two-year term, the city said on the website.
A Harvard professor strikes a chord in poem dedicated to frontline workers fighting the pandemic
HOUSTON โ A Harvard Medical School professor and doctor of internal medicine published a poem as an ode to essential workers fighting the coronavirus pandemic and their families and itโs now circulating widely on social media. Wendy Stead, MD authored the poem โAn Essential Workerโs List of Pandemic Chores for the Kidsโ, written about the children of essential workers who were left home to take care of the chores, from laundry to schoolwork. In the poem published on the JAMA Network, she emphasized that she โis an essential workerโ and called it a comfort of being one โwhile the dead (bodies) piled up.โโItโs OK to lose the game. Sometimes a leader needs to stay calm so everyone else knows it will be OK,โ the poem said. Many of the readers on JAMA Network took the time to comment on her poem, saying it captured the conflict between a mom with her love for her children and her career as a frontline worker.