Happy National Poetry Month! Not so very long ago, poetry readings were a regular event at some City Council committee meetings.
Soon after he took office in 1998, Councilmember Nick Licata began holding a series of poetry readings at his committee meetings related to the arts, establishing the nation’s only poetry program on the agenda for a recurring city council committee meeting. The program continued until Licata left office in 2015.
Item 5726, Nick Licata Moving Image Collection (Series 4650-12), SMA.
The reading series became known as the Words’ Worth Poetry Program. A guest curator for Words’ Worth was chosen every few months, who then selected a number of poets to read their works before committee meetings. A full list of curators and poets, representing a rich universe of local poets, can be found on SMA’s archived city webpages through Archive-It.
In addition, Licata’s Moving Image Collection contains a treasure-trove of videos documenting the Words’ Worth poetry readings. The videos are available to view online at our Digital Collections site, and several have also been uploaded to SMA’s YouTube Channel.
Also established by Licata during his time in office was the Poet Populist program, which provided for a local poet to be nominated and elected by popular vote. Competitive candidate read-offs gave audiences the chance to hear original pieces from nominated poets. According to an archived file on the program, the elected Poet Populist was charged with “promoting the principles of populist poetic expression when performing in and around the city, providing public education in poetry and authoring an original poem.”
From 2009 to 2015, Seattle was without a Poet Populist due to budget shortfalls. In 2015, a new Civic Poet program (inspired by the Poet Populist program) was established, with Claudia Castro Luna named as the first to hold the position. Today, Seattle’s Civic Poet Program continues the legacy of the Poet Populist program by fostering community dialogue and engagement between the public and artists while celebrating the literary arts.
Learn more about the Words’ Worth and Poet Populist programs, and browse videos and other records related to them, at our Art and Democracy: Civic Poetry digital collection.