“Poets ache in the strangest places / but we all agree / that scripting madly / in huts of our own / illusion / is the only way to savor / the fret and sprawl / of our furious movements / away from absolution,” writes Mike Jurkovic in his poem “consensus omnium,” published in his 2023 poetry collection Buckshot Reckoning (Luchador Press).

Jurkovic is Ulster County’s 2025 poet laureate, recently announced by County Executive Jen Metzger. The Wallkill-based writer has lived in Ulster County for 34 years. The appointment was announced at Metzger's State of the County address, where Jurkovic recited one of his poems.

“In the back of my head I was expecting it,” Jurkovic said, “because people were whispering, but did I think it was a slam dunk? There are some great writers around here. A lot of them are more outgoing than I am. When they told me I was like, ‘Oh, that’s cool.’ I’m comfortable with it.”

“Words possess the remarkable ability to bridge hearts and minds, uniting our community through the art of verse,” Metzger said, “and through his evocative poetry, Mike Jurkovic captures the essence of everyday life and invites us to explore the hidden beauty in our daily experiences.”

Jurkovic succeeds Kate Hymes in the post. Hurley poet Robert Steuding was appointed the county’s first poet laureate circa 1981, but afterwards the post went vacant and was virtually forgotten for decades. It was revived in 2023 by Metzger and former Arts Mid-Hudson director Linda Marston-Reid. The laureate is selected by a panel who receives the public nominations for the role and chooses based on merit, community engagement and involvement, and other factors.

It is a one-year, unpaid role with a goal of helping the poet engage with the public, perform at readings across the county, and work towards enacting initiatives and projects that will allow residents and visitors to the county a deeper understanding of the history of poetry in the area.

We spoke to Jurkovic about his “lifetime career in writing,” which he said, “does feel like a lifetime, though I never meant it to be.” Growing up in the South Bronx during the 1950s and ’60s, he found his calling writing stories about his childhood monster model kits. But, like many of that era, he didn’t fully realize his potential until “Bob Dylan came and broke everything wide open.” Dylan taught the young writer “that you could put far less words together rhythmically, musically, and metrically, and that’s how I got into it.”

Inspired by Beat poets like Jack Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Kenneth Patchen, Diana Di Prima, and Allen Ginsburg, and singer-songwriters like Dylan and Joni Mitchell, Jurkovic channeled his passion for music and the “inherent rhythm” of words joined together and found himself slipping down the rabbit hole of poetry.

His poetry, he describes, is “dark and humorous,” adding that “I don’t shy away from being dark, though I try not to make it depressing. If I can offer any glimmer of hope I try to do that. [My poetry] is something that might make you grin or think or laugh.”

He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, one of the highest badges a poet can tote, and he currently has seven published poetry collections and chapbooks alongside hundreds of published poems in magazines, presses, journals, and anthologies. He is a contributor to Elmore Magazine, Folk and Acoustic Music Exchange and Chronogram. He hosts the NuJazzXcursions radio show on Vassar College’s WVKR-91.3 FM on Mondays from 9-10 a.m. He also runs the Music Fan Film Series at the Rosendale Theatre and is looking forward to hosting a “jazzoetry” event there sometime later this year.

His published books include smitten by harpies & shiny banjo catfish (Lion Autumn Press, 2016), Blue Fan Whirring (Nirala Press, 2018), AmericanMental (Luchador Press, 2020), mooncussers, (Luchador Press, 2022), Buckshot Reckoning (Luchador Press, 2023) and Monet’s Bamboo (CAPS Press, 2025).

He is currently working on two poetry manuscripts, Circling Planes and These Journals I Inhabit, which he has sent to publishers and is hoping to hear back about soon.

Jurkovic is also the president of Calling All Poets (CAPS), a nonprofit organization highlighting poets on both a local and international scale.

CAPS started in 1999 in Beacon by poet Jim Eve, who knew Jurkovic from the local poetry scene and attending and reading at events together. At the time Jurkovic was hosting his own reading, Voices of the Valley, which traveled all over the Hudson Valley.

After trying to collaborate for years, the pieces finally fell into place in 2003 when a project Jurkovic was working on petered out and Eve called him the next day asking if he’d join the crew.

The organization has its own press, which has published several anthologies and catalogues in connection with The Roost in New Paltz, and local writers’ poetry collections. They have also added a membership option, where people can donate to support the organization’s mission. The events are now exclusively held on Zoom, which has expanded their reach.

“Zoom has been a boon for us,” Jurkovic said. “I hate to say that, but we had a great audience all these years but now we’re international.” He cited a recent featured poet from Ireland, and an upcoming one from Malaysia.

“We are not as different as our leaders want us to believe we are, and this is just how we do this,” Jurkovic said.

Jurkovic’s plans for his role as Ulster’s Poet Laureate include two projects he hopes will come to fruition in the coming year. This includes establishing an Ulster County Poet Laureate in Memoriam, which will highlight voices that never attained the title of poet laureate in the county they called home.

The second project, which is more taxing and time consuming, would be, in Jurkovic’s vision, either an online or visual space collecting the recorded archives for all CAPS events along with many other poetry and spoken-word events that have been recorded in the area for decades. The title for this project is the Hudson River Poetry Archive.

To learn more about CAPS and Jurkovic, you can visit the CAPS website at www.callingallpoets.net. More information about the role of Ulster County Poet Laureate and upcoming events featuring Jurkovic can be seen at www.artsmidhudson.org/uc-poetlaureate.