Wishing Happy Birthday to our Oregon Poet Laureate Paulann Petersen today.

It is a milestone birthday for her (we won’t say which one, achem…) and with 16,000 travel miles under her belt as Poet Laureate these last couple years, it’s no wonder she’s looking forward to a small celebration with family.

But last week she em-ceed the Cultural Coalition of Washington County’s grant announcement celebration, and here is an excerpt from her speech, a passionate argument for the importance of culture to our humanity.

Thank you Paulann for your outspoken support of the Trust and for all that you do for culture in Oregon. Happy Birthday to you!

“We are here to celebrate generosity.Obviously, we celebrate the awarding of… grants, that generosity—all made possible by, and only by, people who donate to the Oregon Cultural Trust, those people who donate to the Cultural Trust and thereby double their support of our libraries, historical societies, performing and visual arts centers and all manner of cultural education and expression.

Any celebration here today is a celebration of people’s generosity to the Oregon Cultural Trust, that incomparable, unique—no, I do not use that word, unique, loosely: there is truly one and only one Cultural Trust in these 50 states of the United States of America— Oregon’s Cultural Trust.

And yes, when you celebrate the Cultural Trust, you celebrate the very existence of an Oregon Poet Laureate. Without our unique Cultural Trust, we would not have an Oregon Poet Laureate. Would not. No. Would not. Period. In 2006, after a seventeen year absence, the Oregon Cultural Trust and the Cultural Partners re-instated the position of an Oregon Poet Laureate. Oh, Bill Stafford, you would be pleased for us now.

Thanks to the Cultural trust, thanks to the five Cultural Partners, I’ve traveled almost 16,000 miles in Oregon as Oregon Poet Laureate. As part of that, I’ve had the honor of giving workshops and readings in five of Washington County’s libraries: Beaverton, Forest Grove, Hillsboro, Sherwood, and Tigard.

We celebrate the generosity of those who financially support the Oregon Cultural Trust because they believe, we believe, in the significance of arts and culture….

We fervently believe that art, that culture, are indispensable, necessary, essential to a vital, vibrant community.Why? Why do we believe this? Why indispensable?

Because theater, literature, music, and films, because poetry, sculpture, paintings, and prints, because a fine lecture, fine television and radio programming: these all speak the language of us at our best. That’s why.

They all speak the marvelous language of us at our best.

We encounter many kinds of language in our world. We are spoken to as consumers— as potential buyers, potential voters.

We encounter, we create, the language of chit-chat, the language of conversation, much of it—thankfully—cordial enough.

We encounter the language of information, technical language, official language, some of it all too often too officious.

We are most often spoken to as receptors of data, receivers of fact. Fair enough.

But theater, literature, music, films, poetry, visual arts: they speak to us in the language of vision, sympathy, empathy, affect, the language of insight.

Is there any wonder why we hunger to be spoken to in that language? Any wonder why we seek out a concert, a reading, a performance, an exhibit?

Who doesn’t want to be spoken to as a soulful, creative, responsive creature? Who doesn’t want to be addressed as an entity deeply, profoundly human and humane, addressed as what we are, when we are, at our very best?

That’s what we celebrate here, today: ourselves at our best. We celebrate those endeavors that address us in the language of us as we most want ourselves to be.

We celebrate the individuals, the organizations, who commit themselves to supporting those endeavors speaking to us in that marvelous tongue of ourselves at our most human and humane.We celebrate our humanity.

We celebrate the work of the Oregon Cultural Trust, the… cultural non-profits that so splendidly contribute to the vitality of every community…And I am here to do just that, to celebrate you. I offer you—humbly offer you—each of you, all of you, my admiration, my gratitude.

I bow with thanks to you.”

–Paulann Petersen, Oregon Poet Laureate, July 11, 2012, CCWC Grant Announcement at the Jenkins House