CARSON CITY, Nev. — Nine poets laureate and writers who gathered in Nevada's capital on Sunday for readings and wide-ranging discussion concluded their two-day summit Monday by releasing a joint declaration calling on the National Endowment for the Arts and Western state arts councils to direct more resources toward rural literary communities.

The declaration, signed by laureates representing states including Nevada, Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico, and Idaho, argues that funding formulas historically weighted toward metropolitan centres have left small towns and frontier communities without access to sustained literary programming. The signatories called specifically for a new grant category dedicated to itinerant poet-in-residence positions that would rotate through rural school districts.

Nevada's current poet laureate, who served as the gathering's primary organiser, said the Carson City summit had been designed from the outset to produce a concrete policy outcome rather than simply celebrate regional writing. 'We came here with the intention of leaving something on paper that arts administrators and legislators could actually act on,' she told reporters outside the Nevada State Library and Archives building, where Monday's closing session was held.

The declaration drew prompt acknowledgment from the Nevada Arts Council, whose executive director indicated the agency would present the document's recommendations to the state legislature's subcommittee on cultural affairs before the end of the current session. Representatives from the Wyoming Arts Council and the Montana Arts Council issued statements expressing support for the proposal.

The gathering, which drew writers working in forms ranging from formal verse to oral tradition and spoken word, also produced a shared anthology of place-based poems to be distributed free of charge to public libraries across the participating states. Organisers said they hoped the Carson City meeting would become an annual event, with the 2027 summit provisionally scheduled for Santa Fe, New Mexico.