Well, after England has just made waves by voting in its first gay woman Poet Laureate, Tacoma is countering with its first spoken-word Laureate. Antonio Edwards was announced as the second Urban Grace Poet Laureate of Tacoma last Thursday night at a reading at UPS. The position was inaugurated last year by the downtown church to promote Tacoma's poetry community, and involves giving workshops and readings both at the church and other venues. Edwards takes the mantle from UPS English professor William Kupinse. An honorable mention went to Brittany Short.

Edwards, born in Brooklyn of Puerto Rican and German descent, is well-known around town as a spoken-word poet, performing at venues from Theater on the Square to the Pantages to local schools and libraries. He's an engaging man, full of smiles but not pulling punches when it comes to political and social issues. His poetry is charged, immediate, the rhymes and rhythms bouncing around like a breakdancer, with wordplays and Tacoma references scattered like coffee beans.

Via Edwards, Tacoma seems to be reinventing the whole Laureate thing. Usually this post has connotations of stuffy odes on monarch's birthdays. But Edwards, who says he uses poetry to break up fights at bus stops, intends to take poetry back to the urban community, to have more shows in different venues, and show kids that the pen is way mightier than the gun, so to speak.

"If you have a beef with someone, if you have a political agenda, it's more digestible in a poem. People tend to listen more," says Edwards. He's also planning to focus on the performance part of poetry.

But Tacoma's poetry scene is bigger than Edwards and the Poet Laureateship. Three recent poetry books and one to come, a sackful of open mics and readings, even letterpress bookmarks from the UPS library - it's all here. You can find out all about it in my story this Sunday in Soundlife.