Calling all poets! By happy coincidence, three poetic opportunities present themselves in Tacoma this month. Get your pens ready:

- Poet Laureate William Kupinse is offering a free workshop on “The Sustaining Community of Poetry” at Kilworth Chapel, University of Puget Sound. Entrants’ poems will be discussed and new work written in the light of concepts of sustaining communities through the arts. Workshop 2:30-4:30 p.m. Feb. 20, optional reading at 5 p.m. To register, email name and one or two poems relating broadly to sustainability to wkupinse@ups.edu by Feb. 18. Limited to first 18 applicants.

- Submissions are now being accepted for a new anthology of Tacoma poetry, to be published by Exquisite Disarray Publishing. Editors William Kupinse and Tammy Robacker are looking for around 75 local poets (established and new) to “represent the diverse voices and experiences that characterize Tacoma” in the provisionally-titled book “In Tacoma’s Shadow.” Sound like you? Send submissions by Feb. 20; find more information at www.exquisitedisarray.org/tacoma_poetry_anthology.html. The book, supported by Tacoma Arts Commission, the University of Puget Sound and Urban Grace church, will be released to coincide with National Poetry Month in April.

- Aiming higher? The position of Tacoma’s Poet Laureate is up for grabs. Current Laureate William Kupinse is at the end of his one-year term, and the second “Soul of the City Poetry Competition” for the new Urban Grace Poet Laureate is now open. The Laureate position, supported by Urban Grace church and the Broadway Center for Performing Arts, attracts a cash prize of $1,000, and involves providing two workshops and monthly poetry recitals at Urban Grace services from April 2009-April 2010. The new Laureate will be announced in a National Poetry Month event in late April.
Applicants may submit two poems and an application form by March 27 to Kenneth Coble, kcoble@urbangracetacoma.org, 253-272-2184 x106.