Portland Monthly Interviews Oregon's New Poet Laureate, Anis Mojgani

Anis Mojgani, Oregon's 10th poet laureate, started his term on May 4, 2020. In conversation with Conner Reed at Portland Monthly, Mojgani explains, "[o]ne of the things that it feels right now is needed by our city, by our state, by our planet, by our country, is not a sugar coating, but something that allows all of us to have the permission to be imaginative of what our world can become." Picking up from there: 

Right now, everything is so uncertain—with good reason. Lots of things are in the process of being shown how they are weak and unsustainable and detrimental, and some of those things are already starting to crumble. Of course there’s an uncertainty of what is on the other side of this great divide that we are in the process of crossing. […]

What can be made? Where can we go? What beautiful possibilities can we create from what we imagine? That is far longer of an answer than I intended to give to you, but I do think that’s where my headspace is at with regards to what it is that we need. We need to be powerfully imaginative. If there are ways in which I, as a poet laureate, can do that, that’s something that I really want to discover and explore. 

Continue at Portland Monthly.