Alabama

State Poet Laureate

In 1931, Alabama established a state poet laureate position, which is currently held by Jacqueline Allen Trimble, who was appointed in 2026.

City and County Laureates

Birmingham

In 2023, Salaam Green was appointed the inaugural poet laureate of Birmingham.

Type	Title	State
Literary Organization	Alabama Writers' Conclave	Alabama
Literary Magazine	Black Warrior Review	Alabama
Literary Magazine	Birmingham Poetry Review	Alabama
Literary Magazine	Southern Humanities Review	Alabama
Poetry-Friendly Bookstore	Alabama Booksmith	Alabama
Poetry-Friendly Bookstore	Gibson's Books	Alabama
Poetry-Friendly Bookstore	Jim Reed Books	Alabama
Poetry-Friendly Bookstore	Black Classics Books & Gifts	Alabama
Writing Program	University of Alabama Program in Creative Writing	Alabama
Literary Organization	Alabama Writers' Forum	Alabama

Those four black girls blown up

in that Alabama church

remind me of five hundred

middle passage blacks,

in a net, under water

in Charleston harbor

so redcoats wouldn't find them.

Can't find what you can't see

can you?

Michael S. Harper

1970

My mother scraped the name Patricia Ann from the ruins
of her discarded Delta, thinking it would offer me shield
and shelter, that leering men would skulk away at the slap
of it.

Patricia Smith

2012

River was my first word
after mama.
I grew up with the names of rivers
on my tongue: the Coosa,
the Tallapoosa, the Black Warrior;
the sound of their names
as native to me as my own.

I walked barefoot along the brow of Lookout Mountain
with my father, where the Little River
carves its name through the canyons
of sandstone and shale
above Shinbone Valley;
where the Cherokee
stood on these same stones
and cast their voices into the canyon below.

Ansel Elkins

2016

Poetry Near You

Alabama

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Arna Bontemps

Jake Adam York

Lynna Odel

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Alabama

Recent & Featured Listings

Arna Bontemps

Jake Adam York

Lynna Odel

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