After months of searching, a new poet laureate for the city of Benicia has been named. For the next two years, Johanna Ely will be the city’s sixth poet laureate, succeeding Don Peery.

The office of the poet laureate was established by Benicia Public Library’s Board of Trustees in 2005 to place an emphasis on poetry in the city and increase appreciation of it. Benicia’s poet laureate is appointed by the Poet Laureate Committee, serves a two-year term and reports annually to the Library Board of Trustees on poetry-related activities happening around the city. The poet laureate also participates in civic and library functions.

Ely has been a member of Benicia’s First Tuesday Poetry Group since 2012, but she has been writing poetry since she was in fourth grade. She was inspired after hearing her teacher read a book of color poems titled “Hailstones and Halibut Bones” and then had students in the class write poems of their own.

“I loved the imagery I heard and wrote my first poem about the color green,” she said.

From that moment on, Ely became an avid poet. Her favorite aspect of the art form is being able to connect with readers on a personal level.

“Writing poetry is a way for me to express emotions and observations that are very personal, but that also ring true on a universal level,” she said. “It’s like sharing with the world your biggest secrets and then having some people respond, ‘Oh yeah, I’ve felt that way too!’”

Ely graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in English and received her teaching credential from St. Mary’s College in Moraga. She taught elementary school in Pittsburg for 25 years but has chosen to focus on poetry in her retirement.

Ely’s work is done in a free verse format using accessible language. She treats her poetry the same way a painter treats a canvas.

“I ‘paint’ my poems, and enjoy using rich imagery,” she said. “I write about feelings that we’ve all experienced, as well as moments of beauty- a walk along the waterfront at sunset, or a hummingbird hovering in mid-air.”

In the past few years, Ely has been an active member of Benicia’s First Tuesday Poetry Group, in which the community’s many talented poets gather in the library’s Dona Benicia Room on the first Tuesday of the month to discuss and read poetry. She has also been the chairwoman of the Benicia Love Poetry Contest, a poetry competition put on annually in February, for the last two years.

“I found the group to be very welcoming, and a safe place to read my poetry,” she said.

Additionally, Ely’s work has been published in poetry anthologies and online journals and she recently published a collection of poems titled “Transformation.”

Ely was chosen as Benicia’s newest poet laureate after submitting a resume along with a few of her poems, and being interviewed by a five-person selection committee. Her term as poet laureate began on Friday, and she will serve through June 30, 2018. Her goal is to make poetry accessible to all of Benicia.

“I plan to have more poetry readings and events at the libraries, in the schools, at the art galleries and in the restaurants and coffee shops around town,” she said. “Eventually, I would like to see Benicia have a teen poet laureate, who would help promote and organize poetry events at the high schools, and at the library.”

She will also continue the Love Poetry Contest as well as providing poetry scholarships to graduating high school seniors.

Ely will be officially introduced as Benicia’s new poet laureate at Tuesday’s City Council meeting, which will begin at 7 p.m. in the Council Chambers of City Hall, located at 250 East L St. She also invites poetically inclined citizens to come to the next Benicia First Tuesday Poetry group meeting, Tuesday, Aug. 2 from 6:45 to 8:45 p.m. at the library. Interested participants can either bring a poem to share or just listen.

“I am honored and excited to be Benicia’s sixth poet laureate,” Ely said.