Throw a stone in North Carolina and you”ll hit a writer, says the state”s Poet Laureate, Kathryn Byer. Appointed to the position by Governor Michael Easley in April of 2005, Byer participates in public events, teaches and helps bring North Carolina poets the attention that they deserve with a weekly feature on the web site of the North Carolina Arts Council. In his announcement of her appointment, Governor Easley said, “Kathryn”s talents have earned her many honors and awards, and I know she will be an outstanding representative of North Carolina”s rich literary arts.”

Most recently, her poem Tristia won the Denny C. Platner Award for Poetry, awarded to the best work published in Appalachian Quarterly. Byer”s poems have appeared in Arts Journal, Carolina Quarterly, Georgia Review, Hudson Review, Iowa Review, Nimrod, Poetry, and Southern Review, as well as numerous anthologies. Her books include Catching Light (Louisiana State University Press, 2002); Black Shawl (1998); Wildwood Flower (1992), which was the 1992 Lamont Poetry Selection of The Academy of American Poets; and The Girl in the Midst of the Harvest (1986), which was published in the Associated Writing Programs award series. Her fifth volume of poetry, Coming to Rest, will be published this year. You”ll find a taste of Byer”s poetry at the NCARTS web site… but my particular favorite of all of her lines is this one, from a poster distributed by the NCARTS:

…A Laureate
lassoos the Milky Way
word after luminous word of it,
holding it out in her hands
like a piece
of Laurette”s chocolate cake
saying,
“Try this!
Believe me,
you”ll like the way the poetry tastes.”