(Photo: Adina Currie)

Kris Demeanor has been named Calgary’s first poet laureate. The singer-songwriter and spoken word artist accepted the newly minted position at Calgary’s City Hall earlier today.

In a press release, Demeanor says, My mom and dad’s families came to Calgary in the 1950s intoxicated by the classic frontier dreams of boundless opportunity and big nature. I’m a fortunate son of those fulfilled promises, and have had a lifelong centre line seat to Calgary’s evolution into a bundle of wild contradictions, alternately inspiring and confounding, an over-indulged child with flashes of old wisdom and visionary plans.

I am delighted and humbled to have been enlisted to articulate the Calgary experience through language over the next two years, and will do so with a solid balance of humour, history, gravitas, celebration, critique and raw entertainment value. I look forward to being your mirror.

During his two-year term, for which he receives an honorarium of $10,000, Demeanor will perform at official city events, write commissioned works, and trumpet Calgary’s art scene.