Community Library Sedona hosted the second of four scored poetry readings in the competition to become the first Sedona Poet Laureate on Wednesday, April 16, with performances by Poet Laureate finalists Martha Entin, Gary Every, Clint Frakes, Camille LeFevre and Tee Pace and Youth Poet Laureate finalists Felicia Elisabeth Grace Foldes and Anya Blue Lior.

“I was impressed that the first evening for the Poet Laureate readings had a full house at [CLS] with so many coming out to support our local poets,” city of Sedona Arts and Culture Specialist Nancy Lattanzi said. “There are many benefits to this collaboration. I think it’s really important to elevate the literary arts and make poetry accessible for all generations. The arts are essential and this art form is a powerful tool that brings [the] community together to celebrate our diversity, share our emotions and touch our souls, all of which happened last night.”

The finalists also performed at the Mary D. Fisher Theatre on Monday, April 21, after press time. The third and final scored performance will take place on Sunday, April 28, from 6 to 8 p.m. at Tlaquepaque’s Patio de las Campanas. All the events are free to attend. 

The highest-scoring finalists in each category are scheduled to be appointed the Sedona poets laureate during the Sedona City Council meeting, Tuesday, May 13. A committee of local poets, educators and artists are judging the poets’ poetry and performances.

The program will appoint a senior and a junior poet laureate for a two-year term to serve as ambassadors for the written word. The duties will include public readings, composing poems for civic occasions and conducting workshops for local students. The Poet Laureate will receive a $2,000 stipend, and the Youth Poet Laureate, who must be and receive the opportunity to have their poems published in the National Youth Poet Laureate annual anthology.

Martha Entin

Raised in Canada, Entin holds a master’s degree in counseling psychology. Her books “Ocean of Love II” and “Meditations” combine poetry and photography and are part of the CLS collection.

“For many years, Entin, poet and playwright, has performed at Sedona Arts Center Poet’s Corner, with Pumphouse Poetry and Prose Project, with Red Earth Theatre, and at [CLS],” her Sedona Poet Laureate biography states. “She is a member of the Sedona Coyote Poets and curated a standing-room- only performance at Rumi Tree Gallery in 2023. For [12] years Enton has taught creative writing, “Writing Our Way to Bliss,” at OLLI Yavapai College.”

Gary Every

Every’s poetry has appeared in literary magazines, and he is a published science fiction author with two novellas and seven Rhysling Award nominations to his credit. Every hosted the live 

“Poetry and Prose Project” reading series for eight years before transitioning it into a Sunday morning radio show featuring local authors. 

“I’m in love with the world, in the universe, and I find things that delight me and amaze me all the time and that’s what I want to write about,” Every said. “That’s what I try and get across in my poems, and they’re not all happy poems. But this is our chance to march in this cosmic parade, and we got the DNA from people before us and people after us. And I just want to share how beautiful it is.”

Clint Frakes

Frakes is a Sedona-based poet, writer, teacher and naturalist whose work has appeared in over 100 journals and anthologies worldwide since 1987. A former chief editor of Hawai’i Review and Big Rain, he was named one of the 50 Best New Poets of 2008 by former U.S. Poet Laureate Mark Strand. His upcoming poetry collection is titled “Myths, Beasts & the Ways of Water.”

“When Ezra Pound said, ‘the artist is the antenna of the race,’ and my teacher, Allen Ginsberg, said,‘We are the conscience of a nation,’ very often, when conscience [is] running thin, you can find it in the poets,” Frakes said. “That’s what [Percy Bysshe] Shelley meant when he called us ‘the unacknowledged legislators of the [world],’ because we’re not beholden to anything but the conscience of the race …As poet laureate, I think I would walk about holding these ideals in practice within the community that they represent …. But I intend to travel with it, to be an ambassador of [Sedona] and the arts community. Me and my sons are traveling across Canada this summer. We’ll probably do a few readings between Vancouver and New Brunswick and see if we can mitigate the current damage between our nations.”

Camille LeFevre

LeFevre is a writer and educator based in Sedona. Her work, whichshe described as focused on memory and the natural world, has appeared in Electric Lit, Fugue and Brevity Blog. Her essay “Body Topography” in The Doge was nominated for Best American Nature Writing and Best American Essays. She teaches at the Institute of American Indian Arts and was awarded the 2023 Scuglik Memorial Residency in ekphrastic poetry.

“The prospect of being poet laureate is so exciting because it’s about taking poetry out into the community and making it a public celebration,” LeFevre said. “I was an arts journalist for many decades, and I write creative nonfiction, and turning to poetry was a way of challenging myself as a writer in a new and different way. It’s much about condensing and metaphor and symbol and communicating something through the minimal amount of words, it’s been really challenging and rewarding.”

Tee Pace

Pace is a Sedona-based writer and photographer A former educator originally from Staten Island, N.Y., she has completed a poetry chapbook on the differing types of love and is writing a road memoir about queerness, self-love and renewal.

“All my poems are based on moments in my life or are inspired by people and events, so my poems are often creative non-fiction and more free verse-style,” Pace said. “It’s [often] isolating to be a writer and a poet, so being poet laureate would mean a lot to me … it’d be a good way for me to incorporate my love for education and teaching and my love for poetry.”

Felicia Elisabeth Grace Foldes

A Sedona native, Foldes is a student at Yavapai College while working part-time at her family’s Uptown retail shop. She’s shared her work locally since 12 and is a threetime National Garden Club Poetry Contest winner, taking first place nationally for “Home, Sweet Desert Home,” which she read for CLS attendees. A longtime Girl Scout, she earned the Silver and Bronze Awards, the latter for helping create Sedona’s first Little Free Library.

“My poetry will help people think of the outdoors of Sedona in a deeper way, and not take it for granted … and I’ve learned about preserving natural habitats, and so maybe my poems will encourage people to do so too,” Foldes said.

Anya Blue Lior

Lior is a sophomore at Verde Valley School and a lifelong resident of Sedona who loves reading, writing and sharing poetry.

“Poetry is a way to say things in a way that doesn’t always make sense, because if you’re trying to write an essay, it always has to be grammatical and perfect, and you have to convey your emotions in such a particular way for it to make sense to other people,” Lior said. “But with poetry, there’s so much freedom to just say whatever you can just like, throw it up on the page, and it can still be artistic and expressive.”