The Albany Arts Committee selected Christina Hutchins as the City's first Poet Laureate in the Summer of 2008. The year 2008 is Albany’s Centennial year and is thus a fitting time to begin a Poet Laureate program that will help us celebrate our shared history and community. The honorary position of Poet Laureate is given to a writer who uses poetry to express and celebrate a spirit of community throughout the year and to foster a love of poetry and literature among citizens young and old.
Meet Albany's Poet Laureate
Christina Hutchins is the City of Albany's first Poet Laureate. She holds degrees from University of California at Davis, Harvard, and the Graduate Theological Union and currently teaches philosophy of religion/aesthetics at Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley. In addition to her 1999 Collecting Light,
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Christina Hutchins at Dinner with Albany
Photo by Dorothy Brown |
recent poems are published in The New Republic, The Missouri Review, Antioch Review, Prairie Schooner, Denver Quarterly, The Southern Review, Sycamore Review, Women's Review of Books, and in anthologies by Houghton-Mifflin, Milkweed, Ashgate, and Harper San Francisco. She has won the Villa Montalvo Poetry Prize and received two Barbara Deming Awards for Poetry, and her manuscript Interregnum has been a finalist for the National Poetry Series, New Issues Poetry Prize, Fordham's Poets Out Loud, Utah State's May Sarton Award, and the Colorado Prize. Christina, who has worked as a biochemist and a Congregational (UCC) minister, has lived in Albany since 1995 and loves being able to walk everywhere a poet needs to go: post office, copy store, grocer, pool, and coffee shop.
Christina's first public presentation was at Albany's Centennial Celebration, Dinner with Albany on September 27, 2008. She give an opening poem from the main stage located on the corner of Solano and Kains Avenues looking out upon a packed street of nearly 3,000 people seated at dinner tables. Read the poem Christina wrote for the occasion
"Impressions of Albany at One Hundred"
What does the Poet Laureate do?
- Present to the City, sometimes at
public occasions, at least 4 new
poems each year (example: First Day
of Spring, Memorial Day, July 4th,
Albany’s Centennial Day)
- Hold a poetry workshop at a lowerlevel
school (middle or elementary)
in year 1 of the term and at the high
school in year 2 of the term
- Once a year offer a public reading of
his/her work and that of other poets
at the library or other designated
venue
- Participate in other activities that
promote poetry throughout the
community
Other Poems by Christina Hutchins
Dreams of Trees: Written in celebration of Arbor Day & the tree planting on Neilson Street in Albany, 25 April 2009.
April in Albany: Written for the Spring Art & Music Festival, 26 April 2009, & in celebration of National Poetry Month and Cerritos Creek.
Creek: Gratitude for the Five Creeks restoration workers. Labor Day picnic 2009.
Please Contribute
The Poet Laureate Program is administered by the Albany Arts Committee and funded by generous donations from the community. The Albany Arts Committee intends to build a substantial fund that will eventually enable the Albany Poet Program to become self-sustaining. The Poet Laureate Fund will cover the costs of honoraria, publicity, publications, and other related Program expenses. Please become a patron of the Albany Poet Laureate Program by making a donation of any amount to the Poet Laureate fund.
Send your contribution to:
Albany Poet Laureate Program
c/o Albany Arts Committee
1249 Marin Avenue
Albany, CA 94706
All contributions meet the IRS requirements for charitable deductions.