By Journal Staff

MARQUETTE — Educators, librarians, authors and community leaders announce the formation of the Upper Peninsula Poet Laureate Foundation, which promotes poetry in the U.P. and the projects of the U.P. poet laureate through public events and online and print publications.

M. Bartley Seigel, the current U.P. poet laureate, and former laureates Martin Achatz and Andrea Scarpino will participate in the Peter White Public Library’s Winter Wonderland, which will run from Dec. 6 through Jan. 3. at the library, located at 217 N. Front St.

The event will include the library’s festival of lights and trees. The public can hear the laureates’ poetry on a talking “Winter Poet Tree” decorated with Christmas tags. Each tag has a QR code leading to websites where poets read winter poems. For more information, visit pwpl.info.

Future projects of the U.P. Poet Laureate Foundation will include distributing posters of the laureate’s poetry to high school libraries across the U.P., a chapbook of the U.P. Young Poets Program poems and accepting applications for the 2023 laureate.

To learn more about the foundation and current laureate Seigel, visit https://uppoetlaureate.org/.

The foundation is looking for volunteers from all 15 counties of the U.P. who are interested in participating in promoting U.P. poetry. Donations to the foundation can be sent to U.P. Poet Laureate Foundation, c/o Janeen Pergrin Rastall, 2100 M-28 East, Marquette MI 49855. As an Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3) organization, all donations are tax-deductible.

For more information, contact Rastall at janeenpergrin@gmail.com.