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People's poet
asmith@providencejournal.com
EAST PROVIDENCE, R.I. — It's an unusual job.
The Rhode Island Poet Laureate, established by law in 1989, receives $1,000 a year for a five-year term. The state poet is expected to be an advocate and ambassador for poetry in the state, but the specifics of the job are left up to the poet. There is no crown, tiara, sash, scepter, medal, flag or ceremonial robe.
The newest poet laureate is Tina Cane of Rumford, appointed by Gov. Gina Raimondo in December. (The previous poet laureate, Rick Benjamin, left Rhode Island to take a job in California.)
"At first I was a little nervous about the public nature of the position," Cane said. "I'm very shy in many ways. But that dissipated fairly quickly. . . I have a lot of ideas, and just having this title, you can get people to listen to you. So I'm feeling great about it."
Cane, 47, is a New York City native who moved to Rhode Island 11 years ago. She attended the University of Vermont and the Sorbonne and completed a master's degree in French literature at the University of Paris and Middlebury College. She has taught French, English and creative writing in schools throughout New York City and Rhode Island. She's founder and director of Writers-in-the-Schools RI (which she also serves as a visiting poet) and works with the local writing community Frequency Writers.
She said education will be an important part of her tenure as poet laureate. Her first act is to establish a scholarship for a military veteran to attend a Frequency Writers workshop. She would also like to see Rhode Island have a Youth Poet Laureate.
Raimondo, in her statement announcing the appointment, referred to Cane's role in promoting poetry in Rhode Island's schools.
"She's a people's poet," Raimondo said. "Throughout her career, she has worked tirelessly to make the arts more accessible, bringing poetry and a spirit of creative self-expression to Rhode Island's schools. Tina truly embodies the powerful role art will play in Rhode Island's future, and I can't wait to see what she will achieve."
Cane will also be curating a column for The Providence Journal that will run the second Sunday of each month. She will write the first and last columns of the year herself. The others will be guest written by 10 other Rhode Island poets, which Cane said is an opportunity to showcase the wealth of talent in the state. "For a really small state, there are a lot of wonderful poets here," she said.
Cane's arrival in this small state was something of a happy accident. Cane and her husband, Peter Crump, were living in Brooklyn. But when they had their first child they realized it was no longer practical for them to live in the city.
But where to go? Crump wanted to live near the water. The couple had once read an article in a magazine about Providence, and Cane remembered visiting some friends who were going to RISD. "So, rather recklessly, we moved to Rhode Island," Cane said. "We knew no one, and we had no work."
Now they have three children. Crump, an artist in Brooklyn, is co-owner of the building company Site Specific LLC. (The walls of the Crump/Cane home in Rumford display Crump's large abstract paintings.)
The Rhode Island Poet Laureate is chosen by the governor, with input from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. Randall Rosenbaum, executive director of the council, said RISCA put out a call for nominees and then convened a panel to review the 27 nominated poets.
From that group, RISCA sent along five recommendations to the governor. He wouldn't say if one poet was recommended over the others, but acknowledged that RISCA was very pleased with the final decision. He said Cane is an excellent poet who has a proven track record of education and community engagement, and it's a rare candidate who combines the two as effectively as Cane.
Cane, who said she interviewed with a member of Raimondo's staff in August, said she never found out who nominated her. "The process is a little mysterious," she said.
Rick Benjamin, the state's previous poet laureate, said he was a member of the RISCA panel, and was delighted Cane was selected as poet laureate. "I know she'll be good. I have no doubt about it," he said.
Benjamin had high praise for Cane's poetry.
"She has a very refined voice and sensibility. Her poems are beautifully layered, introducing something and then coming back to it, playing with language in ways I find compelling," he said.
Many of Cane's poems are written as a series of phrases, spread across the page. Benjamin said he liked the way the phrases suggest both disconnection and connection at the same time.
Cane has been published in a number of poetry journals, including Spinning Jenny, Two Serious Ladies, The Literary Review, Barrow Street and Tupelo Quarterly. Her first book, "The Fifth Thought," was published in 2008. She has another book just published, and a third due out very soon.
"Dear Elena: Letters for Elena Ferrante," a collaboration with Providence artist Esther Solondz, is out now. (Ferrante is the pseudonym for the Italian novelist who wrote the Neapolitan Quartet.) Another poetry collection from Cane, "Once More with Feeling," should be available within a few weeks.
Cane said she has pretty much always been interested in poetry, with influences that include Walt Whitman, Federico García Lorca, Marguerite Duras, and Lisa Jarnot.
Despite contemporary poetry's current position within a niche of American culture, Cane believes poetry can speak to nearly everyone. Poetry has layers, she said, comparing it to an episode of "The Simpsons" that contains material for both children and adults.
"You take what you can from it," she said. "It will reveal itself to you over time."
Darcie Dennigan, co-founder of Frequency Writers and assistant professor in residence at the University of Connecticut, is another fan of Cane's work. "I'm surrounded by language all day. When you hear one of her poems, you stop and pay attention to the language in a different way," she said.
Dennigan said she's delighted Cane was named poet laureate.
"I've been rooting for her ever since I found out the [previous state poet] was moving away," she said.
— asmith@providencejournal.com
On Twitter: @asmith651
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