Costa Mesa names UC Irvine poetry instructor Danielle Hanson its first poet laureate

Los Angeles Times

03-04-2025

Danielle Hanson in 2016 left a thriving corporate communications job in Atlanta to devote her time to her first love — poetry.
That departure kicked off a six-year period of serving as a volunteer editor at various small publishing companies and literary journals, during which Hanson saw her own work published before securing a job as a part-time instructor in UC Irvine's School of Humanities.
'The curse, and also the blessing, of writing poetry is you're absolutely never going to make a living doing this,' the 53-year-old Irvine resident quipped in an interview Monday.
Still, despite that rule of thumb, Hanson seems to be making a pretty good go at a life steeped in verse. In addition to teaching poetry, she's published two books of her own work, 'Ambushing Water' in 2017 and 'Fraying Edge of Sky' the following year. And she's currently working on a third.
For those reasons and more, Hanson has been named the first-ever Costa Mesa Poet Laureate, a position that runs for two years and will see the UC Irvine instructor lending poetic flair to a host of city-sponsored events and creative programs.
Officials announced Hanson's selection in a news release Monday, explaining the laureate program is one more investment being made to promote Costa Mesa's status as 'City of the Arts.'
'Not every city has a poet laureate, and I'm pleased to hear that we have one now,' Mayor John Stephens said in the release. 'Poetry is an important literary art form that provides a wonderful complement to the city's exciting performing and visual arts.'
The program stems from the city's Arts & Culture master plan, a document adopted in 2021 to guide the development of cultural programs and initiatives. Selection of a poet laureate adheres to a goal stated in the plan to 'professionalize and elevate the status of arts and culture in city government.'
Costa Mesa arts specialist Laurette Garner worked with members of the Arts Commission to review candidates for the new role. She said Tuesday the program is a conscious effort to include the literary arts among the city's rich cultural offerings.
'We needed someone who was solid, could work independently and could kind of take the reins,' Garner said of the ideal candidate. 'We weren't sure what we were looking for because it was a new program, and we didn't know what direction to go in. But, across the board, everyone liked Danielle.'
Working on a $2,500 annual stipend, Hanson will produce original poetry and make appearances and lead workshops at city events, such as Costa Mesa's ARTventure.
Hanson — who fell in love with verse as an undergrad at University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and went on to earn two master's degrees, in creative writing and applied mathematics — is married to UCI Dean of Engineering Magnus Egerstedt and has twin daughters attending college.
She encourages her students to read poetry and then try it for themselves by responding to prompts or phrases intended to inspire their creative thinking. And while she's not worked out the details of her two-year stint in Costa Mesa, Hanson is already thinking of bringing poems to local parks and organizing 'poetryoke' sessions, in which people recite famous works in an open mic format.
'I see who likes poetry among those whom I interact with, and I know they're representing a sample of all people out there who would like poetry if they interacted with it,' she said Monday. 'So how do we get it out there where people already are?'
Costa Mesa is not alone in appointing poets laureate to further the cause of literary arts on a civic level. A countywide program, launched in 2021, selected Natalie J. Graham to a two-year term through a joint effort of the nonprofit LibroMobile Arts Cooperative and Orange County Public Libraries. Gustavo Hernandez is the county's current poet laureate.
Municipally, the Laguna Beach Arts Commission named resident Kate Buckley poet laureate in 2017 as a means of 'promoting the literary community and celebrating the written word,' Cultural Arts Director Sian Poeschl confirmed Monday.
In later years, that program shifted to a wider literary focus and then into a pandemic-era Artist-in-Residence program, followed by a Creativity in a time of Crisis grant program, that later morphed to an Artistic Innovation Grants program, the latter of which this year bestowed $100,000 to artists in varying stages of their careers, according to Poeschl.
While the city of Anaheim has a Poet Laureate program, no such titles exist in Huntington Beach or Newport Beach, although the latter did maintain a program as far back as 1978, a city spokesperson reported Monday.
Hanson's own city, Irvine, has no laureate program, but the UC Irvine instructor was able to apply for the Costa Mesa designation, after the city extended eligibility to published poets throughout Orange County, and is glad she did.
'At its best, a poet laureate position is like a cheerleader for poetry out in the community,' she said of her new position. 'That's how I approach it.'