Apropos of April being Black Women’s Month and National Poetry Month, Detroit’s Nandi Comer was named Michigan’s poet laureate.
She is the first to be named so since 1959.
Over the years, Comer has been dedicated to youth development by serving as a writer-in-residence in Detroit Public Schools Community District and community centers. She has also worked in collaboration with organizations, including YArts and InsideOut Literary Arts Projects. Ms. Comer served as a curriculum developer and youth curriculum consultant for various arts organizations and in 2018 received the William Wiggins Award for Outstanding Teaching at Indiana University.
“We’re excited about Nandi Comer’s experience working with schoolchildren and the potential for Ms. Comer to excite young people not simply about the reading of poetry, but the writing of poetry and literacy more broadly,” said State Superintendent Dr. Michael Rice. “This is a tremendous opportunity for us to expand our literacy efforts with and through poetry, and with and through an award-winning public poet.”
Comer’s poems and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Callaloo, Crab Orchard Review, The Journal of Pan African Studies, Sycamore Review, and Third Coast. She is the author of American Family: Syndrome (Finishing Line Press) and Tapping Out (Northwestern University Press), which was awarded the 2020 Society of Midland Authors Award and the 2020 Julie Suk Award.
“Michigan has such a rich legacy of poetry,” Comer said. “Poets like Robert Hayden, who served as the first Consultant in Poetry of the Library of Congress; Pulitzer Prize-winning Tyehimba Jess; and the fierce, award-winning Carolyn Forché have transformed the field by reimagining what is possible in writing. The list is vast and diverse. I am thrilled for this opportunity to celebrate the joy and power of poetry in our beautiful state.”
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