Colorado Has a New Poet Laureate: Crisosto Apache

Here is a land where life is written in water….
the West is where the water was and is
Father and Son of old Mother and Daughter
Following rivers up immensities
Of range and desert thirsting the sundown ever
Crossing a hill to climb a hill still drier
Naming tonight a city by some river
A different mame from last night’s camping fire.…

Those words from one-time Colorado poet laureate Thomas Hornsby Ferril are inscribed at the Colorado Capitol, where Governor Jared Polis just announced this state’s eleventh poet laureate: Crisosto Apache.

Inspired by those purple mountain majesties and other immensities, Colorado acknowledged its poets early. In 1919, it became the second state to launch a poet laureate program. (California started the country’s first that April.) Over the next century-plus, it appointed ten poets to inspire Coloradans and advocate for the art form; the most recent, Andrea Gibson, passed away last July.

“Colorado’s poet laureate is our statewide ambassador of the arts, inspiring and uplifting the next generation of artists and poets in our state. Crisosto will be a strong advocate for the arts and art education, helping youth discover poetry, and bringing Coloradans together,” Polis said at the announcement ceremony. “I am grateful for Andrea Gibson’s service as our previous poet laureate, and we posthumously continue to honor Andrea’s artistic influence and unwavering conviction as powerfully shown in the 2026 Oscar-nominated film Come See Me in the Good Light.”

That documentary captures Gibson’s courageous fight against cancer, and how their words live on.

Works of the first ten poet laureates, including never-before-published poems by Gibson, are collected in Begin Where You Are: The Colorado Poets Laureate Anthology, which was released late last year. It’s already sold more than 1,000 copies, surprising almost everyone, including Turner Wyatt, the project’s curator and director. But he had a plan ready in case the anthology actually made money. “I thought, what if we create a book and then use the profits from the book to create an endowment for the poet laureate so they have more funding to travel to more rural places and be able to afford to go to more low-income schools and libraries,” Wyatt told Westword last fall. “At the time, we didn’t know that arts funding was going to be on the chopping block a couple years later, but I think that emphasizes the validity of this right now.”

As the new poet laureate, Apache plans to reach out to youth across the state and work with county poet laureates. An Indigenous poet and associate professor at Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design, Apache will serve in the role for two years; his term will have a special emphasis on America 250 – Colorado 150, a year-long commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the United States and Colorado’s 150th anniversary of statehood.

“I am deeply honored to step into the legacy of Colorado’s poets laureates as the eleventh and to walk this path,” Apache said at the announcement ceremony. “For me, this service is more than a title; it’s about sharing the quiet miracle of poetry and the transformative power poetry holds for our lives. Today, perhaps more than ever, our young people need poetry. When a young person finds their voice through a poem, they aren’t just writing—they are building the vision for a more compassionate society and future. I hope my time in this role can serve as a bridge, helping young people discover the voices that will shape our futures.”

Apache is Mescalero Apache, Chiricahua Apache and Diné (Navajo); he’s the author of the poetry collections is(ness), GENESIS and Ghostword, winner of the Betty Berzon Emerging Writers Award and finalist for the Colorado Authors League in Poetry. He’ll also be speaking January 29 at Writers for Resistance, a new group discussing political action.

Until recently, there hasn’t been a lot of rhyme or reason to when governors appointed their poet laureates. Bobby LeFebre served as Colorado poet laureate before Gibson succeeded him in 2023; he consulted with Turner on the anthology. LeFebre followed Joe Hutchinson, who held the position from 2014 to 2018. The others: David Mason (2010-2014), Mary Crow (1996-2010), Thomas Hornsby Ferril (1979-1988), Milford Shields (1954), Margaret Clyde Robinson (1952-1954), Nellie Burget Miller (1923-1952) and Alice Polk Hill, who was appointed by Governor Oliver Shoup in 1919.

Today, Colorado Humanities, Center for the Book and Colorado Creative Industries jointly support the honorary position, providing $10,000 annually to cover honoraria and travel expenses. This year, an additional $5,000 will be available as part of the 250/150 Commemoration work, which will follow in the poetic traditions of earlier poet laureates, like Ferril:

Look to the green within the mountain cup
Look to the prairie parched for water lack
Look to the sun that pulls the oceans up
Look to the cloud that gives the oceans back
Look to your heart and may your wisdom grow
To power of lightning and to peace of snow.