Green Bay is a city shaped by its people. This small-town city is full of leaders, makers, doers, dreamers, and everyday people who make this place feel like home. That community spirit is what inspired our newest blog series. Welcome to Meet a Cheesehead!
In this series, we’ll be introducing you to the people who help shape Green Bay every day! We’ll sit down with artists, performers, community leaders, small business owners, and ordinary folks doing extraordinary things around our city.
We’re kicking things off with someone whose work centers storytelling and shared experience: Miriam Brabham, Green Bay’s first Poet Laureate!
What’s a Poet Laureate?
Okay, first things first—just what the heck is a Poet Laureate?
At its core, a Poet Laureate is a poet selected to serve as the community’s official voice for poetry, with the goal of making poetry more visible, accessible, and welcoming to all. Green Bay’s Poet Laureate will serve a two-year term and, during that time, will create programs and partner with local organizations that strengthen the city’s commitment to arts, culture, and community engagement. There is a long tradition of city, state, and national Poet Laureate programs, and Green Bay is proud to add its name to the list of over a dozen Poet Laureates in cities throughout the state.
Meet Miriam
Miriam Brabham is making history as Green Bay’s first-ever Poet Laureate, serving a two-year term from January 2026 through December 2027. She was selected from a group of five finalists through a review process led by the city’s Public Arts Commission, alongside Nakeysha Roberts Washington, owner and creative director of Urban Arts, and Amy Mazzariello, owner of Lion’s Mouth Bookstore.
For Miriam, the timing of the Poet Laureate felt like serendipity. The opportunity arrived alongside a deeply personal period of transition, marked by a growing desire to connect with her community. We sat down to chat with her more about her journey to the Poet Laureate’s seat.
“I was desperately looking for community,” Miriam shares, “but there were several years of just healing. Almost like cocooning.”
During that time, writing became more than a creative outlet—it became a lifeline for Miriam. “Writing is what saved me,” she explains, “Thats’ what anchored me and gave me the ability to get up every day and keep going. I was like, okay, I’ll write about this and see what comes.”
What began as a way to process and heal eventually grew into something larger, ultimately becoming Miriam’s first book, a hybrid collection of poems, stories, and personal reflections, titled 1,000 Apologies to Me. That period of writing and “cocooning” gave her the time to step back into the world on her own terms.
From cocoon to center stage
When Miriam got the news that she would be Green Bay’s first Poet Laureate, excitement came hand-in-hand with a sense of responsibility. Being selected felt like an honor, but Miriam notes that being the first carries a lot of weight.
She recalls a friend’s reaction when she first announced she had been selected as the Poet Laureate. “My friend told me, ‘That’s the end of being in a bubble, right? You’re going to have to put yourself out there. You’re first. You’re setting the tone.”
“No pressure, right?” laughs Miriam.
What makes the moment even more surprising is how close it came to not happening at all. Miriam almost didn’t apply for the role in the first place. “I had to get over that imposter syndrome,” recalls Miriam, “I clearly remember telling my mom, like, I’m not going to apply. She was not hearing any of it.” (Thankfully, a little pressure from mom won out!)
Putting in that application became a shift in how Miriam saw herself and what she wanted next. “I had to start admitting to myself that I wanted bigger things. I wanted to be more involved. I wanted more than just that cocoon.”
A Jane-of-all-trades
Miriam has a passion for poetry, but she also describes herself as someone shaped by curiosity and variety. She traces this trait back to a piece of advice she received as a teenager. “I call myself a Jane-of-all-trades,” she remarks, “When I was a junior in high school, one of my favorite teachers told me that to be the most interesting person in the room, you need to know a little bit about everything.”
Miriam took this advice to heart, embarking on a personal and professional path that has taken her across the country. Born in New York and raised outside of Chicago, Miriam has worked in Indiana, Illinois, and Connecticut, gaining experience in a wide range of roles and environments. Yet despite all that variety, our little city by the bay captured her heart. “I’ve worked in many different places,” she says, “but I’ve never found community like I found here.”
That sense of connection deepened during her time working at UW-Green Bay, where she first worked as a study abroad coordinator, before stepping into a multicultural student success manager role. These roles gave her opportunities to discover her city fully. “That position really showed me how much this community has to offer and how much I wanted to be part of it,” Miriam says.
Building community
In 2021, Miriam began volunteering with Lovin’ the Skin I’m In, a local nonprofit dedicated to empowering and uplifting Black and Brown girls across Northeast Wisconsin. The organization focuses on unlocking the potential within these girls by providing access to mentorship, educational support, leadership development, extracurricular activities, creative opportunities, and more.
What started as volunteer work quickly became something more. In 2025, Miriam was thrilled to step into the role of program director for Lovin’ the Skin I’m In.
“It’s been amazing,” Miriam says of her role, “As a biracial, multi-ethnic person, it is what I would have wanted when I was a child. I have a chance to be who I needed when I was little.”
This sense of intention carries into Miriam’s role as Poet Laureate, too. At the heart of both roles is the same goal: creating access, encouraging expression, and making sure people know their voices matter.
Poetry in Motion: The Voices of Green Bay
At the center of Miriam’s term as Poet Laureate is Poetry in Motion: Voices of Green Bay, an initiative designed to bring poetry into everyday spaces and encourage shared expression.
This program includes partnerships with Brown County Public Library, Oneida Community Library, Lion’s Mouth Bookstore, and Green Bay Area Public School District. Programming will feature public workshops, poetry readings, open mics, youth residencies across the district, and collaborative opportunities throughout the city.
At the end of her two-year term, Miriam envisions closing her tenure as Poet Laureate with a collaborative community mural that transforms a collectively-written poem into a piece of public art.
The tapestry of Green Bay
What stands out the most in conversation with Miriam is her generosity of spirit and deep commitment to representing all of Green Bay. She speaks often about the responsibility that comes with visibility and the importance of making space for a wide range of experiences. She describes the community as a “vibrant tapestry” of stories, cultures, languages, and experiences woven together.
“All the voices of Green Bay—those are who I represent, not only in this position, but anywhere that I go and whatever else I do. There are always going to be differences, but that is part of what makes this city beautiful.”
Where to start if you’ve never read poetry
If the idea of poetry gives you pause, you’re not alone. Many of us have only had exposure to poetry in school, reading Shakespeare or other poets of bygone eras, leaving many readers feeling that poetry is inaccessible or difficult to understand.
“There are so many different types of poetry, so I would challenge that rhetoric and say to people that we are all poetry,” says Miriam, “Every last one of us is a line of poetry. Whether it's spoken out loud or whispered or written. Poetry is expression.”
If you’re not sure where to start, Miriam’s got you covered with some recommendations:
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Jaylene Clark Owens
“She is spoken word goals,” Miriam says, “She has a poem called ‘My Voice, My Choice,’ that’s really wonderful. -
Dasha Kelly Hamilton
“Obviously, Dasha Kelly Hamilton,” Miriam beams, as she talks about one of Wisconsin’s former Poet Laureates, “I’ve met her a couple of times and definitely fangirled over her.” Watch one of Miriam’s favorite performances from Hamilton, called “Makin’ Cake.” -
Ajamou Butler
“He challenged what it means to be a poet and who we see as poets.” -
Truong Tran
Check out his book, Book of the Other.
Poetry in the age of AI
Even as technology changes the creative landscape, Miriam is clear about her approach to writing. For her, poetry is work that must come from the human experience.
“Everything that I’ve written has been all me. I am very anti-AI,” she says, “I have no interest in participating in enslaving our consciousness.”
Poetry, Packers, and People Power
As our conversation wound down, Miriam reflected on how she hopes people see Green Bay.
“I think a lot of times when you hear about Green Bay, you only think of the Packers,” she says, “But if you zoom in a little more, I would like for the people to see more than just that.”
“Not that the Packers aren't great!” Miriam smiles, “But we bring glory to ourselves in a lot of ways, too. In the ways that we support each other. In the ways that we pull each other up. In the ways that we build this community through each other. Making art is part of that.”
Word Sanctuary
We’ll finish out our first Meet a Cheesehead with a poem from Green Bay’s first Poet Laureate, Miriam Brabahm.
Word Sanctuary
Wounded by the world around me
I flee to the sheets
The ones bound for all eternity
The commitment
the safety of poetry
The words never betray me
Fold the pages around me like origami
Make me something new
Make me something complete
Lock me up
Throw away the key
Leave me here
Leave me be
Words I can control
Write myself a new identity
Lost in pros I'll define happy
If Humans aren't meant to be lonely
The Words will keep me company
In written illustrated see the real me
Just one more hit of coupling AB
Just one more line of rhymed symmetry
Loose my sobriety
To get drunk on others vulnerability
Huff their emotional instability
Snort their toxicity
OD on a lack of boundaries
Just to mainline on written therapy
Put me in recovery
Remove the stitches between what is and what could be
Let the words heal me
Iv of pros
Saline of empathy
Bandage me in spoken word
Write these wounds on loose leaf
Written artistry paints me as I would be
If I weren't hooked on hurting
Or dependent on depression
If I were healthy
Would I lose this creativity
Is it just a life line out of crippling anxiety
Or does reality wait on me
Am I the problem
Is it me
Or am I the hero I have waited to see
The one that never saved me
The one that needed poetry
This place heals
In this place you can just be
This is the word sanctuary
Click here to learn more about Green Bay’s Poet Laureate program.
