Joan Logghe was the third poet to hold the position of Santa Fe Poet Laureate. Her tenure began in 2010 and concluded in June 2012.

True to her vision of poetry in the community, Logghe’s term was marked by community performances, presentations and workshops too numerous to count. With Jeremy Bleich, she traveled to schools throughout Santa Fe presenting her “Joan and the Giant Pencil” education series. Logghe’s Valentine’s Day “Drive-By-Love-In” brought joy, friendship and of course poetry to Santa Fe’s senior citizens. Her blog kept the community updated on her many comings and goings as Poet Laureate. “Odes and Offerings” was the culmination of her term, bringing together visual artists, poets and the community for an engaging exhibit and dynamic program series in the Community Gallery.

Joan Logghe works at poetry in community, off the academic grid in La Puebla, New Mexico where she and her husband, Michael, raised three children and built three houses. She studied at Tufts University where she graduated as Class Poet. Logghe began a life in poetry by volunteering at her children’s school thirty years ago.

Awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry Grants, a Mabel Dodge Luhan Internship, and a Barbara Deming/Money for Women grant. Logghe teaching life has included Ghost Ranch Abiquiu, University of New Mexico-Los Alamos, Santa Fe Community College, Artworks, Santa Fe Girls’ School and Santa Clara Pueblo Day School. She taught poetry in Bratislava, Vienna, and Zagreb, Croatia in 2004.

Her books include What Makes a Woman Beautiful, Twenty Years in Bed with the Same Man (a finalist in Western States Book Award), Sofia and Rice. Her latest publication is The Singing Bowl from University of New Mexico Press and Greatest Hits: Love & Death a triptych of selected poems from Joan, Renée Gregorio, and Miriam Sagan the three founders of Tres Chicas Books.

Valerie Martinez served as the City’s second Poet Laureate, from 2008 through 2010. During her term, she presented and participated in over 30 public readings, workshops and events.

“Lines & Circles: A Celebration of Santa Fe Families,” brought together three generations of eleven Santa Fe families, to envision and then create a unique family work of art. The works reflected the family name, history or simply the intergenerational collaboration that happened during the project. Each work was accompanied by an original poem authored by family, Poet Laureate with the family or the Poet Laureate on the family’s behalf. The finished pieces were presented in an exhibit entitled “Lines & Circles: A Celebration of Santa Fe Families” in January 2010.

The goal of the “Lines and Circles” project was to nurture and celebrate the Santa Fe community, encourage positive relationships within and between families, nurture meaningful community dialogue, and generate a body of art and poetry that commemorates city life. The “Lines and Circles” families included the Akers Hunt Covelli, Carmona, Goler Baca, Ingram, Jones Brown, Martínez Ridgley, Quintana Gallegos, Ortiz Dinkel Hasted, Salazar, Shapiro Bachman and Strongheart families.

Martínez is a poet, educator, playwright, librettist and collaborative artist. She is the author of six books of poetry including Absence, Luminescent, World to World, and Each and Her (winner of the Arizona Book Award, nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award and Pulitzer Prize). Martinez has more than twenty years of experience as a teacher, primarily at the college level. For over ten years, she has also worked with children, young adults, adults, seniors and teachers in a wide range of community outreach and educational programs. Martinez is Executive Director and Core Artist with Littleglobe, an artist-run non-profit that collaborates with communities in the creation of significant works of art, installation and performance.