The Iowa Poet Laureate is an honorary appointment by the Governor of Iowa intended to recognize the importance of poetry in Iowans’ everyday lives.
The position is a two-year renewable appointment managed by the Iowa Arts Council and Humanities Iowa that is entitled to no compensation as a result of the appointment but whose poetic accomplishments deserve recognition as the State Poet Laureate.
The position is selected by the Governor from a list of three nominees put forth by a volunteer citizen committee selected by Humanities Iowa and the Iowa Arts Council. The nominating committee is charged with considering the diversity of the people and poetry of Iowa
Current Iowa Poet Laureate
Vince Gotera
Vince Gotera serves as Professor of English at the University of Northern Iowa, where he has taught creative writing and literature for almost 30 years and earned the Faculty Excellence Award and the statewide Regents Award for Faculty Excellence. Gotera holds an MFA in Poetry and a double PhD in English and American Studies from Indiana University.
As an author, Gotera has published more than 300 poems in venues across the U.S. and internationally along with four collections of his poetry: Dragonfly (1994), Ghost Wars (2003), Fighting Kite (2007), and The Coolest Month (2019). He has completed three other collections that will soon be published: Pacific Crossing, about Filipino American life and culture; Corona: Virus, a collaboration with Lee Harlin Bahan about the Covid pandemic; and Aswang Love, a novel in poems about mythic Philippine monsters in love. He has also published a book of literary criticism, Radical Visions: Poetry by Vietnam Veterans (1994).
Gotera is the recipient of many awards, including a Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Global Filipino Literary Award in Poetry (from the literary magazine Our Own Voice), the Veterans Writing Prize (from the Stone Canoe journal and the Syracuse University Institute for Veterans and Military Families), the Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry (from The Madison Review), the Mary Roberts Rinehart Award in Poetry, and the Academy of American Poets Prize. He has been nominated for the Rhysling Award (for Speculative Poetry) for nine years and also several times for the Pushcart Prize.
From 2000 to 2016, Gotera served as Editor of the North American Review, the longest-lived literary magazine in the US. Subsequently he was Editor of Star*Line, the print magazine of the international Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association (2017-2020).
Along with poetry, Gotera writes fiction and creative nonfiction and has performed as a bassist and guitarist for several decades.
Nomination Process
1. Read the Guidelines
2. Completed the Online Application