Stones ready to shine a light as city’s new poet laureate

By Published On: February 25, 2025

Stratford Today by Rob Ross, Feb 24 2025

The poet laureate program can help document and preserver a community’s unique identity.

David Stones is a multi-award-winning poet with over 500 poems in print and now, he is the new poet laureate in Stratford.

The poet laureate program is a three-year pilot project between Destination Stratford and Stratford Public Library and is in collaboration with the City of Stratford’s Community Services Department. Council endorsed the program in November of 2024.

“After a public call for nominations, a panel of seven community judges reviewed the applications and shortlisted them down to three,” said Stratford Library CEO Krista Robinson. “The panel of judges then interviewed each of the shortlisted candidates and after thoughtful discussions, came out with their choices for the Poet Laureates.”

Stones has lived in Stratford for 23 years but only moved here full-time three years ago. With a background in marketing and communications, he has served as chair of the Stratford Perth Museum board as well as on the board for the Stratford Chefs School.

“My wife and I love culture, art, fine dining and theatre, so we short-listed Stratford before moving here in 2002,” Stones said. “It’s a wonderful community and provides us with a wonderful life.”

One of the first questions asked of potential candidates in the running for the role of poet laureate was why did you apply for the role, and Stones’ answer was years in the making.

“For me, it goes right back to Grade 4 when I won a poetry contest,” Stones said. “I had recently arrived from England and was a little bespeckled English lad with thick glasses, and I won this poetry contest after writing a poem about a fire-breathing dragon and performing it for my class. I fell in love with words and that spelled out my career, where writing has been the backbone of all my positions.”

Joining Stones as poet laureate is Quinn Mayer, a Grade 12 student at Stratford District Secondary School who will act as the youth poet laureate, and has been writing poetry for over five years. During their time in their roles, the poets will act as ambassadors for poetry and literature in Stratford and area.

“Being the inaugural poet laureates, they will be spending the first little while helping Destination Stratford and the Library design the program,” said Robinson. “The poet laureates will be required to create a certain number of poems, and present them to the community, and they may run or participate in programs to raise the profile of the literary arts, especially poetry and spoken word. The adult poet laureate will also mentor the Youth Poet Laureate. This is an important program because by creating poetry related to local history and experiences, a poet laureate program can help document and preserve our community’s unique identity.”

For Stones, he understands the power of language and how words can heal, hurt, engage, and even excite.

“I believe totally in the concept of a poet laureate who can shine a spotlight on events and issues and draw attention to community issues and events,” Stones said. “I quietly advocated for the creation of the role in Stratford, not knowing if I would get it or not. But I believe totally in the concept.”

Another part of the role is ensuring all voices are heard whether it’s Indigenous storytellers, agricultural groups, or other racial diversity groups.

“In a poem, the compression of language is so easily dealt with by many people, so part of a port laureate’s role is to identify those marginalized voices and to bring poetry to those voices, and make sure that those voices are heard,” Stones said.

For Stones his first day on the job was Monday (February 24) but he is already excited about building up poetry in the Festival City.

“I’ll be doing poetry in schools and I have a proposal for a community-based annual poetry contest to engage the full community, I would have a theme each year and there would be an adult and a youth prize,” Stones said. “It would result in an annual anthology, and award night, where members of the community who are represented in the anthology would get to read and perform their poetry, It would be a very significant celebration of the demographic composition of our wonderful community and again, an opportunity for various voices to be heard.”

 

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