New London – The city gained a new arts ambassador this week with the naming of its first poet laureate.

Rhonda M. Ward was unanimously recommended for the honorary position by a five-member selection committee and will serve a three-year term promoting and encouraging appreciation of poetry throughout the city.

Her appointment was announced publicly at Monday’s City Council meeting. Mayor Michael Passero made the official appointment.

Ward, who organized her first poetry reading in the city in 2004, said she was honored and humbled by her appointment.

“I am thrilled New London sees the value of poetry to the extent they would create this position. That’s probably the most important part of this,” Ward said. “There’s been a lot going on in poetry in New London for a long time. I feel like I’ve been a part of that but certainly not the only part of that.”

As poet laureate, Ward is expected to design and implement a strategy to engage the community in a way that will nurture creative expression, increase literacy, build self-confidence in communication and expose the power and beauty of language through poetry.

“It’s always been my desire to make poetry for people,” Ward said. “The position will give me even more opportunities to promote poetry. I’m looking forward to all of those opportunities.”

Ward said she plans to collaborate with stakeholders in the downtown arts scene and with the New London school district as a way to involve younger people in poetry in and outside of the school.

Ward’s focus on schools and the youth was one of the many selling points for selection committee member Margaret Bucaram, the head of the early Childhood Center at Harbor School. The committee had narrowed its search down to three candidates. 

“I was impressed. I could see that she would easily gain a rapport with the kids,” Bucarum said of Ward.

Bucarum said that Ward was not only a captivating poet but also a good communicator, something that would be needed to get her message across to the masses and attract youth.

“She is a natural,” Bucarum said. “Living here in New London we want to promote our strengths, and being an arts center, help market more events and the talent from our city. She can do that.”

Ward said promotion and diversity in poetry is one of the keys to attracting the type of person who has never been to a poetry reading to come out and listen to poetry.

“Poetry is not an easy sell. It’s not popular music but I think when people are exposed to many types they find they enjoy poetry more than they thought they might,” Ward said. “In order for people to realize they like some type of poetry they must be exposed to it.”

Ward works as an administrative assistant at the University of Connecticut Institute of Materials Science. A native of Ohio, she moved to New London shortly after a visit to OpSail in 2000.

“I fell in love. With architecture. With people who didn’t know me from a can of paint. With this tiny town with the audacity to call itself a city! New London had chutzpah and I liked that. One year later I was establishing my residency,” she wrote in her letter to the selection committee.

Ward's first reading was at the Golden Street Gallery and said she has represented the city in an unofficial capacity in her international travels. She has also attended and organized numerous poetry readings and said she is exploring an opportunity to create a new reading series working with Expressiones Gallery and Hygienic Gallery.

Ward will be working directly with the Public Library of New London, which will provide technical support to fulfill her mission as poet laureate which includes two public appearances each year, participation in an annual poetry reading event at the library and presentation of original work at the mayoral and council swearing-in ceremonies.

She will earn a yearly stipend of $300 which will be raised through private donations.

g.smith@theday.com