Meet South Dakota's poet laureate at 'Poetry on the Road' at Full Circle Book Co-Op
Those interested in hearing from South Dakota’s poet laureate need look no further than a poetry reading and open mic event at 7 p.m. Wednesday in downtown Sioux Falls at Full Circle Book Co-Op.
The event is part of the South Dakota State Poetry Society’s Poetry on the Road series and will highlight poetry from state poet laureate Bruce Roseland, other society members and local poets. This series has run from September and ends in April with stops in 16 different cities and towns across the state.
The two-hour events are meant to foster the creation and appreciation of poetry and are a project of the Society with support from the South Dakota Humanities Council and local sponsors.
Poet laureates in South Dakota date back to 1937 with the first being Badger Clark, who held the title 1937-1957, then Adeline Jenny (1958-1973), Mabel Frederick (1973), Audrae Visser (1974-2001), David Allan Evans (2001-2015), LeeAnn Roripaugh (2015-2019), Christine Stewart (2019-2021) and now Roseland, according to South Dakota Public Broadcasting. Poet laureates play an important role in the state to advocate for the arts.
When Stewart moved to Canada in the middle of her four-year term, Noem declined to accept the Society’s recommendation for an interim poet laureate. Since the laureates have had four-year terms since legislation passed in 2015 to cap the laureates’ terms, it was up for discussion again this year, but it almost didn’t work out.
Marcella Remund, president of the South Dakota State Poetry Society, said it was a tense and potentially controversial process to get a poet laureate this year, but that the Society is delighted it worked out and is happy to have Roseland representing the state.
To find a state poet laureate, poets self-nominate themselves to the South Dakota State Poetry Society Board and send in applications with their background in poetry, proposed projects, writing samples and an explanation of why they’d be a good candidate, Remund explained, noting the board is looking for someone who would be a good fit and not necessarily the best or most published poet, but for the best poetry representative for the state.
From there, the board narrows down candidates and conducts interviews in a day, then takes a blind vote to rank the interviewed candidates and submits its top pick to the Governor’s office, who then appoints the poet laureate for a four-year term or asks for another name to be approved, then appointed.
This year, the board’s first choice candidate, Roseland, was not initially approved, as Noem’s office cited ethics concerns “which turned out to be unfounded,” Remund said.
The board then sent a second name to the Governor’s office but she did not respond by the July 1 deadline, Remund said. While waiting for Noem’s response, Roseland wrote a letter defending himself as an appropriate choice to the Governor’s office and the Department of Tourism, which was heading the poet laureate process, Remund said.
Tourism Secretary Jim Hagen then contacted Roseland and asked if he would still like the position, and he was then appointed, Remund said.
Roseland is a fourth-generation cattle rancher from north-central South Dakota, author of several poetry collections, a South Dakota Humanities scholar, and winner of multiple Will Rogers Medallions in Poetry, according to SDPB.
This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Full Circle Book Co-Op in Sioux Falls to host 'Poetry on the Road'
