Well-known local author and retired English Professor Reg Saner of the University of Colorado at Boulder, was named the city's first poet laureate by the Boulder Planet at the Boulder Literary Festival on April 28.
Saner, whose writing and poems have been featured in more than 140 magazines and 40 anthologies, said he is "really tickled that the Boulder Planet would sponsor such an event" and recognize poetry in a town more known for its world-class runners than its poets.
Saner was honored in a ceremony at the Boulder Theater attended by other area writers and musicians.
After a highly productive 37-year tenure at CU-Boulder, Saner retired from the world of teaching last December to focus on his writings about the Western landscape.
"I need to travel to do my thing. I write with my feet in a way," he said.
Born in 1931 in Jacksonville, Ill., Saner's passion while growing up was baseball, and he was even recruited to play for the farm club of the then Washington Senators. But instead of pursuing a career in sports, he decided to study English and enrolled at St. Norbert College near Green Bay, Wis., in 1946.
Following college, Saner answered the call of duty and spent nearly a year serving as an infantry platoon leader in the Korean War. While serving in the Army, Saner was exposed for the first time to mountains. "When I saw mountains, I thought, 聭I like this.聮 I had never seen mountains before," he recalls.
Back from the war, Saner applied for and received a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Italy. While there, his love of renaissance culture and mountains grew. "So then I thought, I wonder if the University of Colorado needs a faculty member," he said.
He returned from Italy and in September of 1962 began teaching in CU-Boulder's English department.
"For years I've told my students, this is paradise," he said. "I聮m not thinking just of the university, but of how most of the world lives. Plus our climate and the terrain -- if you聮re not happy here, I don聮t know. Where are you going to go?"
After publishing several poems, Saner released his first book in 1976 called, "Climbing Into the Roots." The book came on the heels of winning the first-ever Walt Whitman award in 1975.
"It was quite a surprise for me," he said. "There were, I think, 1,600 manuscripts, many of which I聮m sure were better than mine. But a judge picks one."
Several other books followed: "So This Is the Map (1981)," "Essay On Air (1984)," "Red Letters (1981)" and "Reaching Keet Seel (1998)."
Saner won the National Poetry Series open competition in 1981 and received the Governor聮s Award for Excellence in the Arts in 1983. Perhaps his best-known book was the 1993 "The Four-Cornered Falcon," winner of the 1994 Colorado Book Award for non-fiction by the Colorado Center for the Book.
He also received the 1998 Wallace Stegner award, given to an individual by the university聮s Center of the American West for a sustained contribution to the cultural identity of the American West.
Retirement is allowing him to concentrate on his writing. "I love it," he said. "I can actually not feel guilty about spending time on my writings."