Your poet laureate program could get a real glow-up

Bonjour du Nord — c'est Sudbury, on lâche pas. Let's go.

Okay, so I’m scrolling through all the news, you know, the usual — tragic stuff about Highway 69, which, ben là, we've been asking for that expansion forever, eh? Then there's the Five winning *again*, which is amazing, but then I see this little nugget. Turns out the City of Greater Sudbury and our public library are looking at giving the poet laureate program a bit of a facelift. Like, who even knew we *had* one? I sure didn't, and I thought I knew everything happening dans la ville!

### What This Means for Sudbury

This is actually kind of cool, non? We always talk about the Big Nickel, Dynamic Earth, Science North, all the mining history, the re-greening, eh? But what about the *âme* of the city? The arts often get pushed to the side, and that's a mistake. Having a poet laureate isn't just some fancy title; it's about giving a voice to the spirit of Sudbury, celebrating our stories and our unique way of life. Imagine poems about:

* The slag pours lighting up the night sky, even if they're not like they used to be.

* Blueberry picking in the hills behind Laurentian University.

* The hustle and bustle of Elm Street or the quiet beauty of Bell Park along Ramsey Lake.

This program could really help us drill down into what it means to be from here. We've got so many stories, from the people who work at Vale and Glencore, to the artists in the Flour Mill, to the students at Collège Boréal. Giving someone a platform to express that? *Magnifique*. It’s a chance to show the rest of Ontario that we're more than just a place you drive through on your way to a cottage.

It's a small thing, maybe, compared to highway expansions or power outages, but it's about our culture, our identity. And that, my friends, has some serious ore, eh?

Élodie Bélanger-Mikkonen, MiTL Sports Desk, Sudbury.

You want more on this? Catch Jay and the gang breaking it all down, eh, live at mornings.live.