Virginia

State Poet Laureate

In 1963, Virginia established a state poet laureate position, which is currently held by Margaret O. Daramola, who was appointed to a two-year term in 2023. Daramola is the author of A Pathway Through Survival (2021).

Alexandria

In 2022, Zeina Azzam became the poet laureate of Alexandria, Virginia.

Arlington County

In 2020, Holly Karapetkova was appointed poet laureate of Arlington County.

Fairfax County

In 2022, Danielle Badra was appointed poet laureate of Fairfax County through 2024.

Type	Title	State
Literary Magazine	Blackbird	Virginia
Literary Magazine	Gargoyle	Virginia
Literary Magazine	Meridian	Virginia
Small Press	Orchises Press	Virginia
Literary Magazine	Phoebe	Virginia
Literary Magazine	Roanoke Review	Virginia
Literary Magazine	Shenandoah	Virginia
Literary Magazine	Verse	Virginia
Literary Magazine	Virginia Quarterly Review	Virginia
Literary Organization	Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP)	Virginia

Afterlife

I’m older than my father when he turned
bright gold and left his body with its used-up liver
in the Faulkner Hospital, Jamaica Plain. I don’t
believe in the afterlife, don’t know where he is
now his flesh has finished rotting from his long
bones in the Jewish Cemetery—he could be the only
convert under those rows and rows of headstones.

Joan Larkin

2007

America (Assateague)

America, Every explorer names his island Formosa, beautiful.
For being first, he alone, Walker Percy tells us, has access to it
and can see it for what it is. And doesn’tevery child call
its imagined pony by its secret name? A word to summon a large
& gentle wildness from empty air, its long face & warm breath
visible in that moment before it touches its muzzle to the dreaming
brow. In one metaphor, America, the tips of your right hand

Kathleen Graber

2016

Virginia Evening

Just past dusk I passed Christiansburg,
cluster of lights sharpening
as the violet backdrop of the Blue Ridge
darkened. Not stars
but blue-black mountains rose
before me, rose like sleep
after hours of driving, hundreds of miles
blurred behind me. My eyelids
were so heavy but I could see
far ahead a summer thunderstorm flashing,
lightning sparking from cloud
to mountaintop. I drove toward it,
into the pass at Ironto, the dark
now deeper in the long steep grades,
heavy in the shadow of mountains weighted
with evergreens, with spruce, pine,
and cedar.

Michael Pettit

1988

Poetry Near You

Virginia

Recent & Featured Listings

Claudia Emerson

T. J. Anderson III

R. T. Smith

Afterlife

America (Assateague)

Virginia Evening

Poetry Near You

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Virginia

Recent & Featured Listings

Claudia Emerson

T. J. Anderson III

R. T. Smith

Related Poems

Afterlife

America (Assateague)

Virginia Evening

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