Bend-based poet and author Ellen Waterston is Oregons new Poet Laureate [Video]

Ellen Waterston, a poet, writer, teacher and speaker based in Bend, is Oregon’s eleventh Poet Laureate, succeeding Anis Mojgani, who has been the state Poet Laureate since 2020.

In an announcement, Governor Tina Kotek, who named Waterston to the two-year appointment, said, in part, “Ellen Waterston stands out for her commitment to community engagement, her focus on bringing different ways of living and different parts of the state together, and her notable ability to describe the moments, places and people that make Oregon, Oregon.”

Waterston’s work is, according to the announcement, inspired by “the remote reaches of southeastern Oregon’s Outback.” In addition to her poems being published in anthologies and journals, Waterston’s books of poetry and prose include “Walking the High Desert: Encounters With Rural America Along the Oregon Desert Trail”; “Hotel Domilocos”; “Vía Lactéa”; “Where the Crooked River Rises”; “Between Desert Seasons”; and “Then There Was No Mountain.”

Waterston has been honored with …