POET LAUREATE
On August 2, 2004, Michael S. Glaser was named Poet Laureate of Maryland by the Governor. Dr. Glaser has served as head of the Division of Arts and Letters and chair of the English Department at St. Mary's College of Maryland, where he began teaching in 1970. He is a professor of English and co-founded and directs the College's biannual Literary Festival and the annual Voices reading series. For over 20 years, he has served as a Maryland State Arts Council poet-in-the-schools and also has served twice as a guest artist at the Maryland Artist and Teacher's Institute.
Dr. Glaser's works include A Lover's Eye (The Bunny & Crocodile Press), and In the Men's Room and Other Poems, which won the 1996 Painted Bride Quarterly chapbook competition. His most recent collection of poems, Being a Father, was published in July 2004. Dr. Glaser also has edited two anthologies of Maryland poets, The Cooke Book (1989) and Weavings 2000: The Maryland Millennial Anthology. He has received the Homer Dodge Endowed Award for Excellence in Teaching, and the Columbia Merit Award from the Poetry Committee of the Greater Washington, D.C. area for his service to poetry.
Born in Chicago, Illinois in 1943, Michael Glaser received his B.A. from Denison University, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Kent State University. Currently, he lives in St. Mary's City, Maryland, with his wife, Kathleen, and is the proud father of five grown children, Brian, Joshua, Daniel, Amira and Eva.
FORMER POETS LAUREATE
For reasons of health, Dr. Flint resigned as Poet Laureate in October 2000. He lived in Kensington, Maryland, where he died on January 2, 2001.
Born in Phoenix, Arizona, May 25, 1953, Michael Collier received his M.F.A. from the University of Arizona in 1979. Currently, he resides in Catonsville, Maryland, with his wife and two children.
© Copyright Maryland State Archives
Michael S. Glaser, Poet Laureate of Maryland, 2004-.
In the 18th century, Ebenezer Cook, author of The Sot-weed Factor: Or, A Voyage to Maryland (1708), styled himself Poet Laureate. Maryland did not have an official poet, however, until 1959. In that year, the General Assembly authorized the Governor to appoint a citizen of the State as Poet Laureate of Maryland (Chapter 178, Acts of 1959; Code State Government Article, sec. 13-306).
Roland Flint (1934-2001) was named Poet Laureate of Maryland by the Governor in September 1995. A nationally recognized poet, Dr. Flint taught English at Georgetown University from 1968 to 1997. He retired as professor of English in 1997. His works include And Morning (1975); The Honey and Other Poems for Rosalind (1976); Say It (1979); Resuming Green: Selected Poems, 1965-1982 (1983); Sicily (1987); Stubborn (1990); Hearing Voices (1991); Pigeon (1991); Pigeon in the Night (1994); and Easy: Poems (1999).
Michael Collier was named Poet Laureate of Maryland by the Governor in February 2001. A former Guggenheim Foundation fellow and former director of poetry programs at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Michael Collier joined the faculty of the University of Maryland, College Park, in 1985. Currently, he directs the University's creative writing program. Since 1994, he also has been director of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. His works include The Neighbor (1995), The Folded Heart (1989), The Clasp (1986), and most recently, The Ledge (2000), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
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