Texas has been designating State Poets Laureate since 1932, but this year is the first time the title has been held by a Black woman.
Amanda Johnston grew up in Austin and now lives in Round Rock. She’s the author of a few different types of books, and she’s now spearheading a project aimed at ensuring that underrepresented poet voices are heard and celebrated across Texas. It’s called Praisesong for the People.
Johnston joined the Standard to talk about the project. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: Could you describe your vision for Praisesong for the People?
Amanda Johnston: I wanted to create a project that celebrated the people across the state where I live and call home.
Praisesong for the People will commission 70 poets from across seven regions of Texas to write poems that are celebrating everyday Texans. So no celebrities, no notable figures, but the people who make an incredible positive impact in our daily lives.
Well, you’re collecting 70 poems evenly split from all over Texas. Where are you in that process?
Well, right now we’ve got about 20 to 25 confirmed poets, and it is by solicitation. I’m inviting folks to participate, so I’m not accepting submissions. But there will be other opportunities for people all across the state, and students K through 12 in the spring, to share their own poems celebrating others.
You’re the first Black woman to be named Poet Laureate of Texas. Is that part of the reason why it is so important to you to uplift those other voices?
I am definitely honored to be the first Black woman to represent my state as Texas Poet Laureate. But as soon as I received that title, I realized that there are so many other incredible poets here – other Black women writers who have been doing this work, teaching me and building a literary community with me.
There are also so many people of different backgrounds, different ethnicities and different intersecting identities who are doing incredible work in their communities to share and uplift poetry and the people. So I wanted to make sure I did something that included all of us and gave all of us visibility, because that’s so important.
We have to see each other to be able to build a community, whether it’s an arts community or just the incredible communities we live in.
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Yes, and poetry is such a powerful way to do that. Tell us about the funding for this project. It’s something you applied for as the state’s poet laureate.
Yes. So sadly, the designation of Texas Poet Laureate does not come with dedicated funding, but the Academy of American Poets, with support from the Mellon Foundation, have the Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship. So I applied with my dream project to do this statewide program. And gratefully, I was funded, along with 22 other fellows across the country.
So the next part of the project will be bringing it to schools. Why is that so important to you?
Poetry is how we learn language. I’m a firm believer that from the time we are infants and first entering this world, we learn language and communication through poetry. Someone who loves us is singing us songs, reading us nursery rhymes or Golden Book poems. And then somewhere along the way, we lose that.
But poetry is an important way that we connect with each other. So I want to bring that back to us in a way that is accessible.
Poetry is for the people. It comes from the people. It should be with the people. And so for students right there in their classrooms – not just as an academic assignment, not just homework – but it’s something joyful to write and praise and share with the people they love.
Were the challenges to books in public school libraries something on your mind when you came up with the project?
I want everyone to have access to literature. They should have access to literature and the work that we create.
I am concerned that when we have book bans and challenges to access to literature and the ideas that come from accessing and reading that work, that people’s own personal voices get lost. Reading and experiencing the writing of others is how we learn and develop our own writing and our own voice.
So this is a direct way to empower young people to harness the power of their voices and then share that.