Poetry and the Upper Peninsula are intertwined, and that’s a good thing.

Marty Achatz, an Ishpeming native, has just been named the U.P.’s third poet laureate, succeeding Andrea Scarpino and Russ Thorburn.

Achatz was to give a reading, along with other poets and writers, Tuesday night at the Marquette Arts and Culture Center.

Achatz, a contingent professor of writing and film at Northern Michigan University, has plenty of material with which to work in the U.P.

“When you grow up and live in a place so centered on the weather and just the environment around you, it just sort of seeps into your poetry,” Achatz told The Mining Journal in a Saturday front-page article.

Being a poet laureate, he said, involves leading readings and events around the U.P., and he hopes to incorporate fundraising for good causes.

He particularly anticipates visiting schools full of young people that he said are often the most excited about hearing and writing about poetry.

Achatz is a published author of poetry, penning “The Mysteries of the Rosary” as well as poems in literary magazines.

What he likes about being a poet laureate, too, is to focus people’s attention on an art form that doesn’t get a lot of mainstream attention.

Even Thorburn said: “You need poets to ask questions.”

Newspaper and magazine articles, documentaries and other forms of communication used to educate people are, of course, necessary, but poetry can provoke thinking in a more creative manner.

A good poem can inspire thoughts in many different ways, depending on the reader or listener, adding a unique dimension to the poem.

As Achatz said, poetry is an art form for truth, and what’s needed now are people who read poems and speak the truth.

And that’s a noble pursuit for any place, not just the Upper Peninsula, and the region is fortunate to have a poet laureate to further this pursuit.