City of Urbana announces 2025 Poet Laureate

URBANA, Ill. (WAND) - The City of Urbana and the Urbana Arts & Culture Program announced the fifth Poet Laureate in City of Urbana history, Angela Patton.

Her term runs until the end of January 2026.

Angela Patton is a published book author, small business owner, and works for Champaign County.

Prior to working for Champaign County, she was a communications professional at the University of Illinois for over a decade.

Patton was selected through a competitive application process by a panel of literary and arts experts.

The poet laureate gets a $2,000 honorarium for the one-year term, funded by the City of Urbana’s Arts & Culture Program.

Patton’s proposal was to lead workshops for writers and build writing programming for Urbana residents of all ages.

The mission of the Poet Laureate program is to celebrate poetry, creative writing, and the arts and enrich Urbana’s diverse community through outreach activities.

Every year, the selected Urbana Poet Laureate is tasked with creating an artistic legacy to highlight the importance of creative writing.

The City of Urbana and the Urbana Arts & Culture Program invite the public to Angela Patton’s Poet Laureate Celebration at 7 to 9 p.m., Wednesday, April 30, at the Gallery Art Bar in Downtown Urbana with a poetry open mic night to follow.