SANTA CRUZ — Santa Cruz County has a new artistic ambassador who will spend the next year highlighting poetry and literary arts, including readings at county functions. In other words, Nancy Miller Gomez has her work cut out for her.
Gomez is the county’s new poet laureate for 2025-26, having officially been announced to the position at the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors’ Jan. 28 meeting. As always, the poet laureate is selected through a competitive application process where a community panel considers factors such as artistic achievement in poetry, community engagement experience and a demonstrated commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, according to a county news release.
Gomez has authored many poems over the past decade and has had her work published in literary journals and anthologies such as “Best American Poetry,” “Prairie Schooner,” “TriQuarterly,” “The Adroit Journal,” “The Hopkins Review” and a special mention in the 2023 “Pushcart Prize Anthology.” She is the author of the 2024 poetry book “Inconsolable Objects,” in which Gomez waxes poetic about carnies, pig farmers, sentient tornadoes, reincarnated catfish and more. The book was named as one of the best poetry books of the year by LitBowl.
Alongside former Poet Laureate Ellen Bass, she is the co-founder of the Santa Cruz Poetry Project, which has brought poetry workshops to incarcerated individuals at correctional facilities throughout Santa Cruz County. She has even brought poetry lessons to Salinas Valley State Prison, which inspired her 2018 chapbook “Punishment,” centered around the lives of those serving time in the criminal justice system.
“Poetry can bring connection to the community even for those who have little experience with poetry,” she said in a statement. “If you take it out of the ivory towers and off the academic pedestals, it has the power to unify people and deliver hope, especially for those who have been marginalized. We need poetry now more than ever, and I will use this role to spread poetry throughout the county and into all the places where it is needed most.”
Gomez has a website, NancyMillerGomez.com, where people can sign up for a newsletter to receive updates and information on future poetry events. She already has an event scheduled for April 14 at Bookshop Santa Cruz, where she will be in conversation with her poet laureate predecessor, Farnaz Fatemi.
The poet laureate position is primarily sponsored by the Santa Cruz County Department of Parks, Open Spaces and Cultural Services, in collaboration with the Santa Cruz Public Libraries, Arts Council Santa Cruz County and Poetry Santa Cruz. For information on the position, go to Santacruzpl.org/pages/sc-county-poet-laureate.