St. Louis poet laureate says funding and civic engagement are top challenges in six‑month report

Poet Laureate Patia presented a six-month report to the St. Louis City Poet Laureate Task Force, outlining programming accomplishments and stressing that the biggest immediate challenge is funding to compensate artists and expand civic engagement.

Patia told the task force that, while she understood the position is unpaid, ‘‘the biggest one really is the funding piece’’ and that artists and organizations ‘‘still need money.’’ She described a range of programming across education and visual arts and said she is exploring alternatives to…