Salt Lake City has a Poet Laureate for the first time in its history, and the honor goes to a familiar face in the local literary scene: longtime Rowland Hall teacher and published poet Joel Long. City officials announced the appointment as the launch of a brand-new program meant to give poetry an official, ongoing presence in civic life across the capital.
The Salt Lake City Arts Council and the Mayor's Office are behind the new Poet Laureate Program, describing it as the city's first-ever effort of its kind, according to saltlakearts.org. The role is designed to make its holder the city's official ambassador for poetry, and it comes with real stakes for whoever fills it: this is a paid, three-year appointment, not a ceremonial title handed out and forgotten. Salt Lake City's own government confirmed the pick in a city blog post, and ABC4 Utah reported that Long's term runs through June 2029.
Long was chosen by a committee of literary professionals, educators and community representatives through a competitive review process, per ABC4 Utah's reporting. The saltlakearts.org announcement lays out the timeline more precisely: the term of service is set for July 2026 through July 2029, with applications having opened April 20, 2026, and closed May 17, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. Anyone applying had to be a Salt Lake City resident with an established record of artistic practice and community engagement in poetry.
What the Job Actually Involves
The Poet Laureate title isn't just a plaque. Per the same saltlakearts.org release, responsibilities include writing original civic poems, appearing at city events, giving public readings across all seven of Salt Lake City's council districts, and rolling out a signature community project. ABC4 Utah's reporting frames that signature project as one meant to connect poetry to local community life, with public programming built out over the full three-year term.
City officials see the appointment as more than a one-time gesture — it's meant to establish a civic tradition that puts poetry into public spaces across Salt Lake City on an ongoing basis, according to ABC4 Utah. That ambition tracks with how other cities have used the role. In San Francisco, for instance, the Poet Laureate — currently Genny Lim, appointed by then-Mayor London Breed, according to the San Francisco Public Library — serves a similar three-year term developing community-based poetry programs and working with the library, the arts commission and community partners on public events. A past San Francisco laureate, Jack Hirschman, once organized readings tied to each of that city's eleven supervisorial districts, a structure that echoes the district-by-district reading requirement now built into Salt Lake City's own program.
A Career Rooted in Utah's Literary Scene
Long brings decades of local credibility to the role. He has taught English and creative writing at Rowland Hall since August 2004, according to Rowland Hall, and holds a Master of Fine Arts in poetry from the University of Utah. ABC4 Utah reports he has spent more than 40 years in Utah's literary community — a run that includes serving as president of the City Art Reading Series from 2002 to 2023, a stretch during which he organized nearly 600 readings featuring local and national authors, per the outlet's reporting.
He's also a published poet several times over. ABC4 Utah credits him as the author of seven books, including Watershed, Lessons in Disappearance, Knowing Time By Light, Winged Insects and Chopin's Preludes. Lessons in Disappearance came out in 2012, according to Artists of Utah, while Winged Insects won the 1999 White Pine Poetry Prize, as reported by the Salt Lake Tribune archive. That prize recognition lines up with ABC4 Utah's note that Long has received the White Pine Press Poetry Prize among his honors.
Long's local recognition goes back further still. In 2009, he received both the Salt Lake City Mayor's Award for Literary Arts and the Writers Advocate Award from Writers@Work, according to Rowland Hall's faculty profile. ABC4 Utah's reporting separately confirms the Mayor's Award for Literary Arts as part of his résumé heading into this new civic role.
With the appointment now official, Long's task over the next several years will be to turn that decades-long résumé into a citywide presence — writing the annual civic poems, showing up in all seven council districts, and building the kind of programming that city officials hope will outlast his own three-year term.
