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Poet Mike Tuggle has been selected at the new Poet Laureate of Sonoma County for 2008-2009.

The Poet Laureate Selection Committee chooses the Poet Laureate based on the nominees' work, their demonstrated efforts in the community in the literary arts, and on statements from the nominees about the role of the Poet Laureate. The committee includes representatives from each of the five supervisorial districts, Sonoma State University, Santa Rosa Junior College, the Sonoma County Library, the Literary Arts Guild, Sebastopol Center for the Arts and the four previous Poet Laureates.

Mike says about poetry "A good poem hurts you a little." Mike hails from West County where he lived many years in a cabin without electricity in Cazadero. He now resides in Monte Rio. He currently hosts a monthly open mike at The River Reader in Guerneville, and was a California Poet in the Schools for many years, working with at risk youth in particular.

Tuggle, 68, was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and majored in both Art and Literature at Texas Christian University, and later received an MFA from San Francisco State University. Susan Kennedy, a poet and Tuggle's former wife of 27 years and co-author of Cazadero Poems by Floating Island Press, says of him, "He truly has lived his life in service to the muse. He deserves to be the poet laureate for the quality of his poetry, and his unfailing encouragement of other poets."

Indeed, Mike Tuggle has been a radio host for poets, magazine editor of a literary publication called California Oranges, long time host of the Snake Poetry Series in Duncans Mills and winners of various awards, including The Dickens, The Oberon Prize and a Sonoma Community Foundation Grant. Mike's most recent publication is Absolute Elsewhere by Philos Press.