A Pico neighborhood mainstay for 20 years, Anne Carmack will be going from serving plates at Lo/Cal Coffee & Market to serving up the best in local literature in a newly-created city position.
In March, Carmack began a two-year term as the city’s Poet Laureate, a public outreach position that seeks to highlight Santa Monica’s diverse and vibrant literary arts scene and promote local arts education through various events. The program was spearheaded by Mayor Phil Brock after meeting similar poets representing the Los Angeles area, with City Council passing a resolution to implement the position in August 2023.
Carmack’s introduction to the community took place on April 20 with a workshop and reception at the Santa Monica Main Library, and she will be a presence at this Saturday’s Arts and Literacy Festival at Virginia Avenue Park.
“We are a place full of vibrant arts and culture and I am thrilled to see Santa Monica have its own Poet Laureate,” Brock said. “I look forward to the community events … as the city commemorates April as National Poetry Month and Arts Month, as well as seeing the great contributions Anne Carmack will provide to our community.”
Carmack embraced writing and poetry from a young age, as her parents bought her a typewriter as an avenue to release her thoughts into the world.
“I had a lot of energy … and so I feel my parents just [thought] oh, she likes to write, [and said] sit here, sit down [at] this typewriter and write something, and poetry just came to me,” Carmack said. “Not good poetry by any means, like rhyming love poems and things like that, but I’ve always written poetry and given poetry as gifts.”
Embracing the written word, Carmack moved to Los Angeles after having screenwriting dreams living in the St. Louis area, eventually calling the Pico neighborhood of Santa Monica home after stints in Colorado and Arizona. As part of her new role, she will be giving back to Pico through a unique poem celebrating the Pico Branch Library’s 10th anniversary, using specific words given to her by locals during the Arts and Literacy Festival.
“This specific neighborhood just really embraced me, it was just a wonderful place to be a young person and my neighbors were [so] kind and the community was so kind and everybody kind of kept an eye on me,” Carmack said. “It was just really [a] warm and loving welcome.”
While screenwriting, Carmack still had poetry on the brain, sharing her works on social media and enjoying the instant feedback as opposed to a more drawn-out scripting process. When the COVID-19 pandemic impacted her hospitality work at The Ambrose Hotel, she sought poetry as a creative practice that “felt the most comfortable” during a difficult time for everyone.
“It was something that I could share in a way that I [thought] could be of service, which kind of sounds lofty and cheesy, but … [it was] something I could do with all the emotions that everybody was feeling, all the fear and all that sort of hopelessness,” Carmack added. “I could write poetry, and I could share poetry, and I could hear from people [that said] that poem lifted my spirits … so it was really helpful for me.”
Carmack’s words were helpful for many, as her debut poetry collection My Own Body Breathing became an Amazon best-seller within a day of its 2020 release. A few years later, she found herself in the running for the Poet Laureate position, believing she would be “a long shot” after sending in samples of her work and letters of recommendation.
During an interview process conducted by local library staff, a key partner in the position’s creation, Carmack was able to talk about herself and the art form she loved, and she called eventually receiving the opportunity “the height of success” because she can share her talents with the city she loves.
“When she left the room, we were so excited and [all we] wanted to do was talk about poetry,” said Santa Monica Library Manager Karen Reitz. “Even though we’re librarians, we’re not necessarily naturally drawn to the world of poetry … but just her enthusiasm, her thoughtfulness [stood out].”
That enthusiasm translated to a successful workshop on short-form lyric poetry, the first workshop during Carmack’s term and her first time leading a workshop in general. Though it was a beautiful Saturday afternoon outside, over 50 people chose to spend time with her in the library crafting their own written works.
“I thought it was so beautiful because I kind of expected people to be a little shy … but people wanted to share, people wanted to tell us what they had to say, so it was a great event,” Carmack added.
Carmack will continue her work at Lo/Cal as a cook while starting to cook up workshops and other endeavors for aspiring poets, a balance she is enthralled to have.
“Right now it’s just like this mixed bag of unexpected things,” she said. “I never thought I would be a grill cook, I never thought I would be a Poet Laureate in such an iconic, incredibly cool city. It’s a fun time.”