Our Favorite Poets in Every State in America
Great writing about place takes many forms.
But poetry, with its ability to leap over logic and skip through time, can unlock a landscape's stories in a distinct way. As part of our recent collaboration with our friends at Lit Hub, editors from both teams went deep on American poets, old and new. The results are here—a dream team of verse, one for every state in the land. Read your way through, and you'll see America through a new and sharper lens.
Check out: The Lit Hub x Wildsam list of key books for every state.
Coming soon: Literary landmarks worth a pilgrimage.
Alabama
Ashley M. Jones
Jones is Alabama's current poet laureate; her 2021 collection REPARATIONS NOW! was longlisted for the PEN / Voelker Award.
Alaska
Ernestine Hayes
The Tlingit poet and former state laureate's "The Spoken Forest" is installed at Totem Bight State Park in Ketchikan.
Arizona
Natalie Diaz
A recipient of the MacArthur "Genius" Grant whose latest collection, Postcolonial Love Poem, won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for poetry, Diaz teaches at Arizona State University, and has directed a Mojave language revitalization project at Fort Mohave.
Arkansas
Rosa Zagnoni Marinoni
In 1926, Marinoni created the University-City Poetry Club; for 45 years, the club met at her home near the University of Arkansas campus. In 1953, she was named poet laureate of Arkansas.
California
Amy Uyematsu
Uyematsu's 30 Miles from J-Town won the Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize in 1992.
Colorado
Camille Dungy
The author of Trophic Cascade and distinguished professor at Colorado State University, Dungy released a new book of prose—Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden—in 2023.
CONNECTICUT
Antoinette Brim-Bell
Brim-Bell, Connecticut's 8th Poet Laureate, is the author of three collections: These Women You Gave Me, Icarus in Love and Psalm of the Sunflower.
Delaware
Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson
The author of Violets and Other Tales and Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence made Wilmington her home.
District of Columbia
Sandra Beasley
Beasley's propulsive and visceral work often takes on national landmarks—from a bracing outsider's perspective.
Florida
Elizabeth Bishop
Poems, Prose and Letters includes poetry from the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner's time in the Keys. Start with “Roosters.”
Georgia
Chelsea Rathburn
The author of Still Life with Mother and Knife also implemented the Georgia Poetry in the Parks project.
Hawai'i
W.S. Merwin
Before his death, the former U.S. Poet Laureate, who was dedicated to the restoration of Maui's rainforests, restored an old pineapple plantation to its original state.
Idaho
CMarie Fuhrman
The state’s current Writer in Residence creates poetry inspired by landscape and wilderness and rooted in her Indigenous experience.
Illinois
Patricia Smith
The decorated Chicago-born poet is the author of eight collections and is the four-time individual champion of the National Poetry Slam.
Indiana
Joyelle McSweeney
McSweeney's Toxicon and Arachne, a volume of two books on disaster and the catastrophic, is brilliant and unsettling.
Iowa
D.A. Powell
Powell wrote the bulk of his first collection, Tea, while he was a grad student at Iowa; the landscape permeates its pages.
Kansas
William E. Stafford
The prolific poet of the Great Plains won a National Book Award for Traveling through the Dark in 1963.
Kentucky
Crystal Wilkinson
In Perfect Black, Kentucky’s poet laureate explores her intersecting identities as a Black woman born in Appalachia.
LouisianaMaine
Jericho Brown
Start with the Shreveport-born poet's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Tradition, a lyrical collection about violence, identity, and legacy.
Maine
Sarah Orne Jewett
Best known for prose awash in Maine’s landscape and tradition, her poetry, too, presents a vivid portrait of life in its seaport towns.
MarylandMassachusetts
Lucille Clifton
Clifton’s work was first spotted by Langston Hughes, who published it in his 1970 anthology The Poetry of the Negro. In 1987, she became the first author to have two of her poetry books selected as finalists for the Pulitzer Prize.
Massachusetts
Mary Oliver
With wisdom, humor, and attention to every precious detail, Oliver's A Thousand Mornings brings the reader along to the shore, ponds, and marshes surrounding the poet's Provincetown home.
Michigan
Lois Beardslee
This Ojibwe poet’s collection Words Like Thunder was the first book by an Indigenous author to win the Michigan Notable Book Award.
Minnesota
Joyce Sutphen
The state’s poet laureate grew up on a farm in St. Joseph and won the Minnesota Book Award for First Words.
MISSISSIPPI
Natasha Trethewey
Born in Gulfport, Mississippi, to parents whose pre-Loving v. Virginia marriage was illegal at the time of her birth, Trethewey served two terms as the Poet Laureate of the United States (2012-2014) and won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for her collection Native Guard.
Missouri
Carl Phillips
Living and teaching in St. Louis, Phillips recently took home a Pulitzer foNebraskar his collection Then the War: And Selected Poems.
Montana
Henry Real Bird
Crow Nation citizen, rancher, and former poet laureate, Henry Real Bird is known for traversing the state on horseback to craft an epic vision in verse.
Nebraska
Ted Kooser
His poetic ode to the state appropriately begins with “the gravel road rides with a slow gallop over the fields.”
Nevada
Vogue Robinson
Clark County poet laureate emerita writes with heart, rhythm, and hope.
New Hampshire
Robert Frost
The Dartmouth alumnus and Pulitzer Prize winner farmed and wrote in Derry, New Hampshire.
New Mexico
Joshua Concha
Concha's poem “Rust” was chosen as one of fifteen installed in outdoor venues in Taos, where he is Poet Laureate.
NEW JERSEY
William Carlos Williams
A practicing physician for more than 40 years, Williams' empathic and honest verse has made him a household name in every state.
POET LAUREATE ADA LIMÓN TAKES IT ALL IN
America's official poet (really!) heads to the National Parks.
New York
Audre Lorde
1968’s The First Cities was Lorde’s first collection of poetry, but her very first poem was published while she was a student at Hunter High School.
NORTH CAROLINA
George Moses Horton
The Hope of Liberty was North Dakota published in 1829, transcribed from the poet’s mouth to the page by an admirer; Horton was the first Black man to publish a book in the South.
North Dakota
Denise Lajimodiere
The Ojibwe poet and author of Stringing Rosaries is the state’s newest laureate.
Ohio
Hanif Abdurraqib
The decorated poet and essayist, born and raised in Columbus, was recently awarded a MacArthur "Genius" Grant.
Oklahoma
Joy Harjo
Harjo is a member of the Mvskoke Nation and the author of ten books of poetry, including An American Sunrise, winner of the 2020 Oklahoma Book Award.
Oregon
Elizabeth Woody
A Warm Springs tribal citizen, Woody is a national force as an artist and teacher, a former state laureate, and the creator of muscular, effervescent lines.
Pennsylvania
Trapeta B. Mayson
Mayson's potent poems address immigration and mental health, informed by her childhood in Liberia and her work as a social worker.
RHODE ISLAND
Tina Cane
Cane is the founder of the popular program Writers-in- the-Schools, RI, as well as the author of The Fifth Thought, Body of Work and more.
SOUTH CAROLINA
Marcus Amaker
Charleston’s first poet laureate is also a musician and the lead graphic designer for the music magazine No Depression.
Tennessee
Caroline Randall Williams
Her first collection of poetry reimagines the life of Shakespeare’s mysterious “Dark Lady.”
TEXAS
Carmen Tafolla
Tarfolla's poetry of place centers on San Antonio, where she grew up in the West-Side barrios.
UTAH
Lisa Bickmore
Utah’s current poet laureate, Lisa Bickmore, is also a professor emeritus in Salt Lake City.
VERMONT
Mary Ruefle
Mary Ruefle does it all. The poet (Dunce), lecturer (Madness, Rack, and Honey), and erasure artist (A Little White Shadow) is also the beloved poet laureate of the Green Mountain State.
Virginia
Anne Spencer
Anne Spencer was a Harlem Renaissance poet and activist who also helped establish the Lynchburg chapter of the NAACP.
Washington
Richard Hugo
Bard of old docks and small-town bars, Hugo is also the patron saint of the Seattle literary center Richard Hugo House.
West Virginia
Irene McKinney
Raised on her family’s farm in Belington, McKinney writes poetry that explores the link between people, and place and mirrors the rural Appalachian landscape.
Wisconsin
Lorine Niedecker
The introverted daughter of a carp fisherman, Niedecker spent most of her life in Fort Atkinson, where she wrote New Goose and My Friend Tree.
Wyoming
Gretel Ehrlich
Primarily known for her nonfiction, especially her 1985 essay collection about Wyoming, The Solace of Open Spaces, Ehrlich has also published poems of rural life and natural spaces in collections like The Cold Heaven.
