Former SLCC Poet Laureate is Named Utah State Poet Laureate

I propose that, when the sickness that is nostalgia comes to visit, I invite her in, serve her tea and cake, before I bid her go.

This line, and many other lines of poetry, fill the pages of three published books by Lisa Bickmore, who was recently named Utah’s new poet laureate. A role she served at Salt Lake Community College as well, where she was the college’s first poet laureate and taught English for 29 years before retiring in 2021.

“I’m deeply honored, excited and a bit daunted by [the appointment],” says Bickmore. “Utah is full of so many wonderful writers whom I admire.”

One of the primary roles of the poet laureate is to promote the literary arts in Utah over a five-year stint. Bickmore plans to build on the state’s annual poetry festival and create a mobile micro-press where writers and writing groups across the state, including middle or high school students, can create chapbooks. This revived book-art medium would allow writers to experience their writing in print.

While at SLCC, she persisted in writing and publishing her own poetry while carrying a full teaching load. “Being a teacher fed my writing,” recalls Bickmore. “I’m grateful for having work that was humane and was about helping people find what they wanted and helping them develop skills so they could get closer to what they wanted.”

Bickmore adds that her poetry comes from her life in the broadest sense. “It’s from being in the natural world, in relation with others, and increasingly I feel that I want to be able to respond to the world as it is."