Morris as Knoxville Poet Laureate

Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero today announced the appointment of writer, musician and playwright R.B. Morris as the first Poet Laureate of the City of Knoxville.

Morris, whose poetry often reflects on East Tennessee culture and history, will serve up to two years in the newly created position.

Mayor Rogero created the City’s Poet Laureate Program earlier this year, and nominations for the first appointee were considered by a committee of the Knoxville Arts & Culture Alliance. The selection committee forwarded its recommendation to the Mayor.

“I can’t imagine a more fitting selection for our first Poet Laureate,” Mayor Rogero said. “Like many in Knoxville, I have enjoyed and admired R.B.’s work for years. He has long shown a commitment to building and enriching our community, and this position will give him a platform to continue and amplify that work.”

Morris, a Knoxville native, has published several books of poetry, including “Early Fires,” “Littoral Zones” and “The Mockingbird Poems.” He has served as Writer-in-Residence at the University of Tennessee. As a singer-songwriter, he has released a half-dozen acclaimed albums and EPs, and his songs have been recorded by John Prine and Marianne Faithfull, among others. Lucinda Williams once called him “the greatest unknown songwriter in the country,” and Steve Earle said, “R.B. Morris is the reason I started writing poetry.”

“It's a powerful thing for Mayor Rogero to begin the tradition of a Poet Laureate for the city,” Morris said. “The legacy of the poets and writers who have come from Knoxville give the position great esteem and expectations from the start. It's a very special honor to be able to serve here at the beginning. I can accept it for all the poets and writers that are in our city now, and that includes all the great songwriters who are living and working here.”

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Call for Nominations: Poet Laureate for City of Knoxville by April 1

The Arts & Culture Alliance of Greater Knoxville invites nominations for Poet Laureate for the City of Knoxville. Knoxville has a long and rich literary heritage. George Washington Harris’s Knoxville-based tales of Sut Lovingood were an influence on Mark Twain, William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor.

Frances Hodgson Burnett, author of The Secret Garden, wrote her first novel in Knoxville based on her experiences as an adolescent here. Pulitzer Prize winners James Agee and Cormac McCarthy both grew up in Knoxville, and the city figures prominently in their works. Poet Nikki Giovanni is a Knoxville native who attended Austin High School and has often written about her memories of the city.

The City of Knoxville Poet Laureate Program aims to extend and build on this heritage by recognizing and supporting citizen poets of exceptional talent and accomplishment.

The Poet Laureate shall serve a term of one year with an optional one-year renewal, beginning in the Summer of 2016, during which they shall serve as a public voice of Knoxville, creating city-specific works and participating in literary outreach and educational programs.

The Poet Laureate will receive an annual honorarium of $3,000; the award should be considered honorific. The City of Knoxville shall retain license to use, reproduce, and compile the work created for the City by the Poet Laureate in his/her official capacity, but the Poet shall retain all other rights to the work.

The deadline for nominations to be received is Friday, April 1, 2016.

Legal residents of the corporate limits of the city of Knoxville may nominate a poet for the Poet Laureate position. Poets may not self-nominate. Those submitting nominations must be at least 21 years old.

Nomination forms, conditions for eligibility, and instructions for submission of nominations may be obtained from the Arts & Culture Alliance's website at www.knoxalliance.com/poet.html, or send an SASE to Liza Zenni, Arts & Culture Alliance, PO Box 2506, Knoxville, TN 37901.