Truth Thomas, Howard County’s inaugural poet laureate, is striving to ‘bring people together’

To Truth Thomas, poetry is a way of documenting life — as is music, as is photography. “That’s what ..

. art does. At its best, it reports on all of the ugliness and all of the beauty that life is,” he said.

“I’ve always wanted to try to bring people together in the work that I do, so that the generations that follow will have a better life than, hopefully, the ones that we live now.” Thomas, who lives in Columbia, is the founder of Cherry Castle Publishing; won the 2013 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work – Poetry; and has been published in more than 150 publications , in addition to his own collections. As of April, he’s also Howard County’s inaugural poet laureate , the first face of a new program initiated to spread and uplift the art form .

The launch of the honorary two-year role, introduced by Howard County Executive Calvin Ball in partnership with the Howard County Arts Council and the Howard County Poetry & Literature Society, means that Thomas will become a familiar face — and voice — as he reads his poetry at county events. His appointment coincides with the poetry society’s 50-year anniversary, and he’ll soon be joined by a youth poet laureate . “Words connect.

Words can help heal,” Ball said. “Especially in these perilous times, people want to be connected. They want to be inspired.

They want to have their hopes, dreams, aspirations, their pain, their passions to be heard and conveyed in ways that a poet laureate can he.