Mendocino County’s first Poet Laureate Devreaux Baker gains national recognition  

Devreaux Baker, Mendocino County’s first poet laureate, was about 19 years old when she left her home in Texas with her partner and began exploring the coast of Mendocino County. 

When she arrived in the town of Mendocino, she knew she had found the place that would become her new home. She explained that those first glimpses of the coastal town are what made her fall in love with this region of Northern California. 

“When I first left Texas and came to California, I asked myself, why did I wait so long to come here,” Baker said in an interview. “When we first came to Mendocino, we didn’t know where we were going to end up. We then continued our road trip north, and did a circle back down to Mendocino, pitched a tent at Paul Dimmick Campground and began to live here for a while. It was a feeling of being young and thinking that anything is possible.”  

Last summer, Baker was honored as the first poet laureate of Mendocino County. Although other laureates have been named in the city of Ukiah, no one has held the honorary title for the county as a whole. The Mendocino County Poet Laureate Committee, which has a board of four accomplished writers who coordinate the nomination process for the Mendocino County poet laureate, reviewed about 30 nominations before selecting Baker. 

A poet laureate is an honorary title given to a highly accomplished writer and storyteller. The role designates a literary ambassador for a designated area, generally for a two-year term. Poet laureates engage with the community, organize poetry events and promote public education about the art form.  

Baker, who has been writing poetry for decades, has published five books and won several awards, including the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Book Award, the Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Award, and most recently, the Steve Kowit Poetry Prize and the Willie Morris Award for Southern Poetry. 

“At first, I remember thinking that I had to choose one or the other, but then a wise older person said that I can do both. I realized that I could do therapeutic work as well as write poetry.” 

Devreaux Baker, Mendocino County’s first poet laureate

She has also taught poetry to young students through the California Poets in the Schools program and produced the “Voyagers” radio program of original student writing for KZYX Radio under a California Arts Council grant. 

Baker has also won international awards, including the U.S. Poets in Mexico Award, which took her to Oaxaca, Mexico, to collaborate with and read alongside Latin American poets and authors. 

During her term as Mendocino County poet laureate, Baker will edit a new poetry collection, “Spirit of Place: Mendocino County Women Poets Anthology,” a sequel to the 1999 anthology she helped edit, which was titled “Wood, Water, Air and Fire: The Anthology of Mendocino Women Poets.” 

For the Willie Morris Award for Southern Poetry, Baker will be flown to Oxford, Mississippi, in April to read her poem “Blue Requiem” and attend the Thirty-First Oxford Conference for the Book. After that, Baker will travel to San Diego to present her poem “Body of the Beloved” and accept the Steve Kowit Poetry Prize.  

Baker still lives in Mendocino and has had a successful career as both a writer and a school counselor for county schools. She holds a master’s degree in counseling from Sonoma State University and has worked at elementary, middle and high schools in the area. 

Eventually, Baker decided to combine her immense love of poetry with her work supporting young people. Although she has retired from the Mendocino Unified School District, she reflects fondly on how poetry helped so many of her students. 

“At that point, I remember when I was working for the schools, I started writing poetry with my students who came to see me,” Baker noted. “We always enjoyed that, and it was a great opening for people who wanted to take a look at their lives. At first, I remember thinking that I had to choose one or the other, but then a wise older person said that I can do both. I realized that I could do therapeutic work as well as write poetry.” 

‘Healing properties’ of poetry

In Baker’s career, she learned that writing poetry is a way to connect communities and show people who are struggling that they are not alone. 

“People can feel very alone with what they are going through and think they are the only one experiencing that thing,” she added. “But if you can put it out there, invariably someone else is going to come up and say they are going through that same thing. Suddenly, you realize you’re not totally alone with this. That’s one of the great healing properties of poetry.” 

Baker grew up on a farm in South Texas, where she and her family upheld the tradition of raising animals and growing their own food, living off the land and using the resources around them. 

This fostered in Baker a deep love of the wilderness and inspired her to portray natural elements in her writings. In Baker’s published book of poems, “Hungry Ghosts,” she writes about the beauty of the great outdoors. In her poem “Let Me Come Back as Water,” she describes the symbolism of water and the role it plays in the environment. 

“Next time around let me come back as water / etched with thunder so autumn trees shake / and scatter their leaves like a hundred canaries / and I am set free in the mouth of some bright yellow storm,” the poem reads, personifying the element and describing how it would feel to become free like water. 

“I grew up in the countryside with a family that was into farming, and it was a very rural environment in Texas,” Baker explained. “Growing up in Texas, I had a real connection to the land and animals, especially horses. This all gave me the inner strength that I have now.” 

This connection that Baker feels to the natural world of Texas, which has profoundly inspired her body of work, has also fueled her fascination with the American South, specifically themes of music, culture and food. In one of her other books of poems, “Beyond the Circumstance of Sight,” she writes an ode to one of the most celebrated cities of the South. 

“I wanted New Orleans to be my dance partner,” begins Baker’s poem, titled the “Spirit of New Orleans.” “My sweet song, my sugar sprinkled on toast / Or French Cameroon with pearls at her throat, / My man blowing his sax, my wanton, my girl, / My ghost.” 

For the Willie Morris Award for Southern Poetry, the application asks writers to submit a poem that evokes the spirit of the South. Baker’s winning poem, titled “Blue Requiem,” reflects on blues music and its relevance in Southern culture. While she is not able to share the poem with the public until her reading at the awards ceremony in Mississippi, she spoke about the themes and inspirations that fueled the piece. 

“This keeps me working and practicing my craft to get ready to submit something. Most of them you don’t win, but that’s not the important part. The important part is the exercise of the craft.”

Devreaux Baker, Mendocino County’s first poet laureate

“Because I am married to a blues musician, our whole life together I’ve been listening to his songs and we have had conversations over the years about blues and the early musicians who really inspired him and others,” Baker excitedly explained. “One day I started writing about early blues musicians. Then I read about the contest, and I sent this poem in.”  

The moment Baker was informed she had won the Willie Morris Award for Southern Poetry, she was completely surprised. Baker, who has submitted her writing to poetry contests for years, never expected to receive an award, let alone a paid trip to Mississippi. 

“This keeps me working and practicing my craft to get ready to submit something. Most of them you don’t win, but that’s not the important part. The important part is the exercise of the craft,” she said. “Then I got a response saying, we want to give you this award and we want to pay your way to Mississippi and be a part of this conference. That was just the cream on top.” 

When asked what she is most excited about during her trip to Mississippi, Baker said that, in addition to meeting fellow poets and authors at the conference, she is eager to listen to some blues music. 

“Where I’m going playing in Oxford there’s an area called The Blues Trail, I’m really looking forward to it,” Baker added. “I’m really excited about being able to spend time in that area.”  

To schedule an interview or organize a reading with Baker, or for information on the Mendocino County Poet Laureate Committee, visit mendocinopoetlaureate.mymcn.org. 

This story originally appeared in The Mendocino Voice.

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