Omaha man chosen as Nebraska’s next State Poet

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - An Omaha man has been chosen as Nebraska’s next State Poet.

Matt Mason was chosen through a selection process led by the Nebraska Arts Council, Humanities Nebraska and the Nebraska Library Commission. Those agencies presented finalists for the honor to Gov. Pete Ricketts, who announced the new state poet Wednesday.

Mason is executive director of the Nebraska Writers Collective, through which he has run the Louder Than a Bomb: Great Plains youth poetry festival each year since 2011.

He also won a Pushcart Prize and two Nebraska Book Awards for his own work. He represented Nebraska as a member of six teams at the Nebraska Poetry Slam.

Ricketts says Mason “will help celebrate Nebraska and bring our state together around our shared love of the Good Life.”