EASTHAMPTON — The city will bid farewell to its outgoing poet laureate, Carolyn Cushing, and welcome its new poet laureate, Carolyn Zaikowski, this weekend.

Zaikowski will be inaugurated Saturday at 2 p.m. in the Blue Room at CitySpace in Easthampton. The event also will feature readings by Janet E. Aalfs, Beth Filson, Isabella Gitana, JuPong Lin, Gary Metras, Kyle Ricci, Rachel Teferet, and Nicole Young-Martin.

Zaikowski, a poet, fiction writer and essayist, will serve a two-year term as the town’s poet laureate, during which she will lead public poetry programming such as readings and workshops.

When Zaikowski found out about her new role, she was “genuinely delighted.”

“I was giggling about it,” she said. “My inner child was like, ‘Really? This is amazing!’ ... Easthampton’s really special, so I’m really honored that they thought of me.”

Zaikowski said that her writing process (before editing) involves a certain amount of mysticism and intuition – being “the television receiver and not the remote control.”

“Whatever the words want to be, I just heed the call. Words are my oldest friend and I trust them, so when it wants to come out in verse or highly lyrical storytelling, I just listen to it and I let it happen,” she said. “I try to go beneath the labels and beneath the ego – be a receiver, let it hang out and just show me what it wants.”

Though writing is a personal practice for her, she also sees it as an important tool for activism, especially in a time of political divisiveness.

“I feel very strongly about highlighting the importance of poetry and language during turbulent political times and the power of poetry and language to name things, to witness things, to imagine new worlds and new possibilities,” she said, “and I think it’s an open secret how important the arts are in times like this.

“Poetry and all of the arts help us feel safe and help us witness ourselves and help us heal and help us really bring ourselves to light in really beautiful ways,” she added.

Zaikowski succeeds Carolyn Cushing, a poet and tarot practitioner who had been Easthampton’s poet laureate since April 2023.

“Carolyn Cushing is an absolutely fascinating person who I have really come to appreciate and love. She really has a way of gently but subversively bringing together things like nature and lyricism and channeling them into commentary about death and grief and synthesizing that into a healing mirror,” Zaikowski said. “She has a subtle witchiness about her that I have come to really appreciate.”

Of course, she and Cushing also appreciate that they share a first name – Zaikowski said the two jokingly refer to themselves as “the confluence of Carolyns.” (When Zaikowski told Cushing that this reporter’s name is also Carolyn, Cushing joked that it was “a conspiracy of Carolyns.”)

“I literally never knew any other Carolyns until a couple years ago, and now I know about 20 of them,” Zaikowski said. “We think there’s something bubbling beneath the surface with the Carolyns coming together, so you can join us if you want.”

In a statement, Pasqualina Azzarello, arts and culture program director of Easthampton City Arts and the city of Easthampton, said, “Carolyn’s work is truly a reflection and synthesis of this time we are living in and we look forward to supporting her creative expression and development through this important and meaningful role.”

By the time her term ends in 2027, Zaikowski hopes to have used her role to engage a broad range of people in poetry, especially people who might not have a background in it.

“I want to encourage people who are shy or insecure about writing to remember that writing is your friend, and it is a trustworthy process – that poetry has been here for thousands and thousands of years and that you can trust it,” she said. “Please, use your words, use your language. We need your voice.”