AUGUSTA - Betsy Sholl, a Portland poet and teacher, has been nominated as the state's third poet laureate, the Maine Arts Commission confirmed Tuesday. The nomination will be presented March 15 to Gov. John Baldacci, who is expected to make the appointment at the opening of Maine Cultural Heritage Week, a statewide celebration of the arts.

"The poet laureate is an ambassador for poetry in the state and beyond," said Donna McNeil, contemporary arts and public arts associate at the commission, which promotes the arts in the state. "The governor is clearly committed to the creative economy, and this is one way of putting the arts forward."

Sholl, who grew up in New Jersey, is the author of numerous award-winning books including "The Red Line," winner of the 1991 Associated Writing Programs Award for Poetry, and "Don't Explain," winner of the 1997 Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry. Her poems have appeared in the Beloit Poetry Journal, Field, the Massachusetts Review, Indiana Review, Kenyon Review and Ploughshares, among other journals. Her work has also been included in several anthologies, including "Letters to America," "Contemporary American Poetry on Race" and "Boomer Girls."

The American poet Rita Dove said that Sholl's collection "Don't Explain" weaves "together of seemingly unrelated events so that revelation unfolds effortlessly. These poems are what narrative can aspire to - namely, the grace and ease of the lyric rhapsody. And yet the charm of the anecdotes, Sholl's facility with line and image, never take precedence over the hard facts of our daily living."

The position of poet laureate, which the state established in 1995, is an honorary office with a five-year appointment, which may be extended for a second term. Nominees must reside in the state and have published poetry marked by artistic excellence. Submitted by poets and other parties, nominations are then accepted by a committee made up of members of the Maine State Library and professionals in the field of writing and poetry in the state. The Maine Arts Commission oversees the process and makes the final recommendation to the governor.

Poets Kate Barnes of Appleton and Baron Wormser of Hallowell each have held the office. "I'm grateful about being chosen, it has been an honor, and I appreciate it," said Wormser at the end of his term last fall. "The poet laureate is really the public face of poetry in Maine, but I have tried to make it more than that. There are still towns in Maine that have never had a poetry reading, and I am hoping the next poet laureate will be able to travel the entire state."

Sholl, who could not be reached on Tuesday, is an assistant professor of English at the University of Southern Maine, and has taught at Stonecoast Summer Writers' Conference in Freeport and at the Frost Place in New Hampshire. She has been poet in residence at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania, and Haystack Mountain School of Crafts on Deer Isle. She has degrees from Bucknell, the University of Rochester and Vermont College, and is a founding member of Alice James Books, the poetry-publishing house located on the University of Maine at Farmington. In addition to two Maine Artists' Fellowships, Sholl, who has been referred to as a jazz poet, received an artist fellowship in 1994 from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Alicia Anstead can be reached at 990-8266 and aanstead@bangordailynews.net.