8760
Effective Jan 1, 2002Added by Stats. 2001, Ch. 206, Sec. 2. Effective January 1, 2002.
- (a) The position of California Poet Laureate is hereby established.
(b) The California Poet Laureate shall be appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate from a list of three nominees provided by the Arts Council garnered through the following process:
(1) The council shall establish a panel of three literary experts, which may include any of the following:
- (A) Literature professors and teachers, including professional poets teaching in such programs as California Poets in the Schools and other arts in schools programs.
- (B) Public and private arts organizations that have a significant literary component.
- (C) Professional poets.
- (D) Boards and directors of literary organizations.
- (E) Literary critics.
- (F) Others deemed by the director to have expertise in contemporary American poetry.
(2)
(A) The panel shall solicit nominations from a broad array of literary sources and individuals, including, but not limited to, all of the following:
- (i) University and college literature departments.
- (ii) Literary organizations, societies, and centers.
- (iii) Poetry book publishers and poetry editors.
- (iv) Directors of poetry reading series.
- (v) Independent book sellers specializing in poetry.
- (B) The panel shall make every effort to ensure that information regarding the solicitation of nominations is broadly distributed.
- (3) The council may establish other rules and regulations regarding the nomination process and expend funds for those purposes.
- (c) Each nominee for California Poet Laureate submitted by the Arts Council to the Governor shall have resided in California for at least 10 years, have a significant body of published work, and be widely considered to be a poet of stature.
- (d) A poet laureate appointed pursuant to this section shall serve for a term of two years, and may not serve more than two terms.