Anne Hanley (AK)(center) with other State Poets laureate, including Grace Paley (VT), Marilyn Nelson( CT), Tom Chandler (RI)and Marie Harris (NH) at first-ever gathering of state poets laureate, Manchester, New Hampshire, April, 2003. Photo by Neil S. Lovett

Alaska State Writer Laureate 2002-2004

"I believe that writing is basic to our human nature. The role of the State Writer should be to encourage all kinds of people to write. Writers do not own writing any more than actors own speech. We are all writers. The act of writing is one of the best therapies. It can help us understand our lives. It is a way into the secret recesses of our hearts. It is a tool to help us figure out who we are and what is important to us. Everyone has something to say. Everyone has the right to write. The State Writer should be out convincing everyone from school children with shiny new lives to older people with rich, layered lives to probe their experience through writing. The State Writer ought to be a model of the writing life with a passion for spreading the gospel of writing to any and all audiences willing to listen."

Anne's columns on over 80 Alaska writers can be read in the Sunday Life section of the Anchorage Daily News and in the Sundays section of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.

Click here for Archives: Anne Hanley in the Anchorage Daily News 

Click here to download a detailed resume, including publication credits in the Christian Science Monitor, the New York Times and other publications and a production history for my plays. (Word file, 25K)

	Left to right: Anne (the short one), Debbie S. Miller, Carolyn Kremers in Gates of the Arctic National Park & Preserve. Photo by Teri McMillan, NPS.

In July, 2004, I was a member of the first Artists in Residence Program to Gates of the Arctic National Park & Preserve. I spent fifteen incredible days backpacking along the North Fork of the Koyukuk and Itkillik rivers. If you would like more information about the Artists in Residence program in Gates, contact Tracie Pendergrast at Tracie_pendergrast@nps.gov. For more information on Gates of the Actic National Park, see http://www.nps.gov/gaar.

Here's a poem from my Gates trip.

Headwaters

When wrongs sprout up

thick as morels after a fire,

leave them for the small, sharp-eyed creatures

who can digest them

Only forgive yourself.

Blame no others. When tempted,

go back to the headwaters.

This time float all the way down.

Watch how the river

muscles its way through canyons

then lets itself go slack and fat

in open country.

Look how the wind spends its fury

on poor grasses, then stills itself

To barely caress the undersides of leaves.

You do likewise, scarred heart.

As you fling yourself over the precipice,

forgive yourself.

As you collect in deep pools,

Forgive yourself.

At the very moment you surrender

To the infinite sea,

Forgive yourself.

 Copyright Anne Hanley