Our Resident Poet
Instructor Christopher Luna named Clark County’s first Poet Laureate
Art by Chris Luna
Father and son, facing the same way
thought rushes through
synapse vessel
like hypertensive blood
branching off in 60 directions at once
no way to stop the frenzy of the explosion
no way to escape the pileup
at the end of thought’s path
still, it might be possible
to slow down enough
to see each
to experience each
one at a time
Clark College English instructor Christopher Luna was appointed as Clark County’s first Poet Laureate by the Clark County Arts Commission.
A Vancouver poet, visual artist and editor, Luna has taught English classes at Clark since 2005. He serves as an English tutor at the Tutoring and Writing Center. He has also served as editor in chief at the Teaching and Learning Center, assistant coordinator for the Columbia Writers Series and a Phi Theta Kappa mentor.
“I am very grateful to the commission for this honor, and look forward to this opportunity to share my passion for poetry with even more members of our community,” Luna said.
Poet Chris Luna
Luna was officially installed as Poet Laureate on February 26 at a meeting of the Clark County Arts Commission. In this new role, Luna will act as a cultural ambassador, composing poems for special events and occasions. His main duty is to promote poetry and literature, nurturing public knowledge and appreciation of the power of words. His work will reflect diverse experiences in Clark County and the Vancouver-Portland metropolitan area.
Luna earned a master’s in writing and poetics at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa Universit in Boulder, Colo. He serves as a writing consultant and poetry event coordinator for Washington State University Vancouver’s Writing Center, where he teaches a weekly workshop.
His work has appeared in New York Journal of Books, Poetry Project Newsletter, The Columbian, The Oregonian and Willamette Week. He co-edited Ghost Town Poetry, a collection of poems from a popular open-microphone poetry reading series he established in 2004. Luna frequently is a featured reader at bookstores, nightclubs, libraries and coffee shops.