The way Anis Mojgani sees it, poetry opens crucial doors inside people.
“You have this whole realm of imagination behind these doors,” Mojgani said Monday. “And if anyone has never told you that you’re allowed to see what’s inside of those rooms, you are 100% allowed to. It’s imperative that one frolics into that space just to see what happens.”
On Monday, Mojgani was announced as Oregon’s next poet laureate, a two-year appointment that begins May 4. He’s the 10th poet in the role, following in the footsteps of Edwin Charles Markham, Ben Hur Lampman, Ethel Romig Fuller, William Stafford, Lawson Inada, Paulann Petersen, Peter Sears, Elizabeth Woody and Kim Stafford.
As poet laureate, Mojgani will receive an annual honorarium of $15,000 and an annual travel subsidy of up to $10,000. The position is administered by Oregon Humanities and supported in part by a grant from the Oregon Cultural Trust.
Mojgani was selected by a 20-person committee that made its final recommendation to Gov. Kate Brown.
“Anis is the pragmatic optimist Oregon needs in these unprecedented times,” Brown said in a statement Monday. “His words breathe fresh air into the anxiety and negativity that we all feel.”
Mojgani (his name is pronounced AH-neess Mozh-GAH-nee) is a New Orleans native who’s a two-time individual champion of the National Poetry Slam and an International World Cup Poetry Slam winner. He’s published five books of poetry, most recently “In the Pockets of Small Gods,” and has performed poetry at hundreds of U.S. universities and at international writers festivals.
Here are excerpts from a conversation with Mojgani on Monday.
Q: What brought you to Oregon and what keeps you here?
Mojgani: Originally I came to take a break from New York City, which is where I was living. My closest friends were in Portland, so I came out here originally intending to be here for maybe a few months.
A few months turned into six months, and six months turned into six years. I left for a bit, then moved back and it’s been five more years.
It’s home to a lot of people that I love, but also it’s one of the most beautiful places that I’ve been. I love being able to have a relationship with the nature that presents itself to me in Oregon.
The other thing that I think keeps me here – I very much fell in love with the city of Portland. It’s not without its challenges and frustrations, but it’s very much a city that I believe in.
Q: How would you describe your poetry, and why do you write it?
Mojgani: At its core, the reason why I write the things that I do is to give myself an understanding of my interior world as it interacts with the exterior world. It allows me to process what it means to be alive, both the highs and the lows of that.
I love story and I love language and I love attempting to create beautiful language and beautiful imagery. I really love attempting to build connections and illuminate connections between human beings.
There’s a lot of wonder that we move past and ignore or mistake it for something else. Having poetry affords me the opportunity to speak to those observations and to find those wonders.
Q: The mission of Oregon’s poet laureate is to foster the art of poetry, encourage literacy and learning, address central issues relating to humanities and heritage, and reflect on public life in Oregon. How do you plan to carry out that mission?
Mojgani: All of us are allowed to put words onto paper, whether we call it a poem or not a poem. All of us have the power and the permission to do such. For those of us that haven’t been introduced to this reality, I really want them to get introduced to that part of themselves.
I’m a big fan of art in public space and I really would love to work with, collaborate with other artists to take words that come from communities themselves and redirect those words back into public spaces so that the community is able to see and to read that who they are, hopefully on their own streets and in their own buildings.
Q: The poet laureate is expected to engage with people throughout the state. Even though you’ll have to do that virtually for now, which communities are you most looking forward to getting to know better, and why?
Mojgani: One of the things that really excites me about the position is that I’ve lived in Portland or had a relationship with it now for 15 years, and in that time there’s so much of the state that I still have not seen and visited.
I haven’t been in Bend in so long, so I’m excited to go to Bend. It’s been so long since I’ve been to Ashland. Any opportunity to go to the coast, I love Astoria. There’s so much along the southern coast that I’ve never been to. I’ve never been to Sisters.
Q: You don’t just write poetry; you also are a prolific performer of poetry, both live and in produced videos. Why do you emphasize performance?
Mojgani: I don’t even know necessarily that it’s an emphasizing, but it’s something that I love.
The writing of poetry and allowing it to be read by someone in a book or on a page, that answers something for me. Saying it aloud and giving it to people with my voice and my body answers something else for me.
To share poetry live is an opportunity to say, “Hey, I have power of self as a person, and this is me sharing my individual power of self to a group of people,” and that feels good. And there’s not a whole lot of opportunities as a human to invite people in to take of oneself.
awang@oregonian.com; Twitter: @ORAmyW