Lexington resident Regie O'Hare Gibson stood at the Hatch Shell on the Charles River Esplanade on Saturday, July 4, and performed his poem "Song of Massachusetts" before a nationally televised audience. The Boston Pops, the Boston Children's Chorus, and original music by composer Carlos Simon backed him up. It was, Gibson told the Lexington Observer, "a bucket-list moment."

Gibson is Massachusetts' first-ever Poet Laureate. Gov. Maura Healey created the position by signing Executive Order No. 640 in February 2025. Gibson was sworn in on Friday, May 30, 2025, chosen from more than 100 applicants. His two-year term runs through May 2027.

Now past the halfway mark, Gibson described his philosophy in a July 16 interview with the Observer's Jeri Zeder. He sees the role as a public office, not a personal creative retreat.

"This is a public office," Gibson said, recalling his reaction to another poet laureate who treated the position as self-exploration. "If I heard any politician say what you just said, there's no way I'd vote for them. No way."

In a typical week, Gibson visits a kindergarten classroom, a retirement facility, a theater, and the State House. He teaches at Berklee College of Music and Clark University in Worcester, and holds an MFA from New England College.

Gibson said he took a listening-first approach to the job, noting that the needs of Billerica differ from those of Cambridge, Springfield, or Hyannis. That instinct has led him across the state. In January 2026, he opened the annual Moby-Dick Marathon at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, stepping to the lectern to read: "Call me … Ishmael." He has appeared at a protest outside the Burlington ICE facility, where he recited a redacted version of the Declaration of Independence, reading only what remains when all its principled phrases are removed.

The position carries an annual stipend from the Massachusetts Legislature, channeled through the Mass Cultural Council. Gibson told the Observer the amount is $25,000, with no additional operating budget. He is negotiating with Mass Poetry to establish a 501(c)(3) to support future poets laureate financially.

He has a direct message for his hometown. Gibson estimates only about 20 of the state's 351 municipalities have a town poet laureate, and he wants Lexington to be next. "I'm here, people," he told the Observer. "Put me to use."

Gibson's larger ambition: he wants Massachusetts to host the largest poetry festival on the Eastern Seaboard, with more poets-in-residence at hospitals and hospices and more poetry phone booths statewide. One local example of that vision already exists in Concord. The West Concord Poetry Phone, a solar-powered phone booth on Beharrell Street off the Bruce Freeman Trail, has featured rotating audio recordings of poems by local residents since May 2024. The installation is run by the West Concord Junction Cultural District Committee.

Residents interested in connecting with Gibson's poet laureate office can reach him through the Mass Cultural Council at massculturalcouncil.org.