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City of Appleton Poet Laureate

The City of Appleton Poet Laureate program elevates and celebrates the art of poetry in Appleton, fostering literacy, creativity, and community connection. 

A large group of people smiling for a camera at the inaugural Poet Laureate event in 2024.

Current Poet Laureate

Megan Gannon, 2026-2028

Poet and novelist Megan Gannon was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee and is a graduate of Vassar College (BA), the University of Montana (MFA), and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (PhD). She also served as a Peace Corps volunteer in The Gambia, West Africa from 1998-2000.

Her work has appeared in venues such as Ploughshares, Pleiades, Gulf Coast, Third Coast, The Notre Dame Review, Verse Daily, Poetry Daily, and The Best American Poetry 2006.

 

She teaches at Ripon College in Ripon, Wisconsin.

Poet Megan Gannon Headshot

Artist Statement

Although the school year finds me commuting to my full-time job as an English professor at Ripon College, my two sons attend area schools, and I’ve had the pleasure of calling Appleton home for nine years. I’ve loved this small city for its bikeable, walkable, and runnable distances, its scenic bridges and green spaces, its cozy neighborhoods of historic houses, old-growth trees, and lavish gardens, its diverse schools staffed with inspiring, brilliant, and devoted teachers, its delicious eateries, and of course, its many cultural events. Although we attract outside visitors, ours is no tourist town; Appleton was built to be a city where people can carve out a rich and fulfilling, quietly-contented life.
As the second poet laureate, I look forward to maintaining many of the programs initiated by inaugural poet laureate, Cathryn Cofell. The Poetry Walk and the Favorite Poem Reading allow poetry enthusiasts and newcomers alike to gather around the crackling, warming fire of poetry, and I intend for them to remain yearly events. In addition, I hope to bring together poetry’s best ambassadors, our elementary, middle school, and high school teachers, to share strategies for returning our media-saturated, AI-tempted students to the joys of reading and writing poems. Given its dense, compressed format, poetry both rewards and challenges short attention spans, and it flourishes on minute details, quirky wordplay, and personal revelation. To quote the artist-influencers, “AI could never.” Finally, I’m hoping to connect with our neurodiverse population to explore the ways in which poetry is uniquely suited for giving language to that which is hard to articulate. Poetry makes space for the full range of human experience, and I look forward to exploring the livable cities we can build together with language.

Past Poet Laureates

Cathryn Cofell, 2024-2026

Cathryn is the author of two full-length collections, including Stick Figure with Skirt, winner of the Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award, and six chapbooks. She’s been published 300+ times and earned over 50 awards, including the Lorine Niedecker Poetry Award, the Mill Prize, and the Christopher Latham Sholes Award for mentoring other poets.

 

She is Appleton, Wisconsin’s first Poet Laureate, head of the Poetry Unlocked Collective, and the Immediate Past President of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets.

 

Her poems have been set to music on Lip, with Obvious Dog, and in concrete on sidewalks in Appleton and Waupaca.

Stay Connected

Visit our online calendar to see upcoming Poet Laureate programs and events. You can also check out our blog for more information about the program.

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