Bluff poet Cilla McQueen has been named National Library New Zealand Poet Laureate for 2009-2011.
The award was announced by the Minister responsible for the National Library, Nathan Guy, on Wednesday evening.
McQueen was the second person to receive the award, taking over from the 2007 appointee, Aucklander Michele Leggott.
The National Library award replaced the Te Mata Estate Poet Laureate award, which celebrated five poet laureates, including Hone Tuwhare and Bill Manhire.
The poet laureate receives a minimum of $70,000 over two years to fund activities to promote poetry.
McQueen said it was nice to hear people were reading her poetry, which she believed had a place in the everyday world.
"It also means that for two years I'll have an income I can be sure of because for the last 30 years I've stubbornly gone on being a poet living on the edge."
National Library Maori, Pacific and International director Jim Mohi said the role would involve a collection of poetry and raising national awareness of the value of reading and writing poetry.
McQueen had produced 10 poetry collections and a CD, and won three New Zealand Book Awards, a Fulbright Visiting Writer's Fellowship, a Goethe Institute Scholarship to Berlin and two Burns Fellowships at Otago University.
She received an honorary doctorate in literature from Otago University last year.
