Waffle House Has an Official Poet Laureate. For Real.

Posted September 4, 2019

External Article: Atlanta Magazine

Karen Head, executive director of the Naugle Communication Center at the Georgia Institute of Technology, as well as the associate chair and associate professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication, was interviewed by Atlanta Magazine in an article published on August 30 entitled "Waffle House Has an Official Poet Laureate. For Real."

Read an excerpt:

The phrase “scattered, smothered, and covered” has a certain poetic ring, so it’s fitting that Waffle House has its own poet laureate. Georgia Tech poetry professor Karen Head is the first to lay claim to that title. We caught up with the recently anointed scribe in advance of her appearance at this weekend’s Decatur Book Festival:

How did you become Waffle House Poet Laureate?
Georgia Tech and Waffle House are very firmly connected. All of the heads of Waffle House have been Georgia Tech graduates. The current CEO Walt Ehmer is a Georgia Tech graduate, and the former CEO Bert Thornton was a Tech graduate. Bert and I got to know each other through some alumni events. We talked about Georgia Tech’s guaranteed admission for any valedictorian or salutatorian in the state. The first year it was offered, there were 37 counties that did not send a single application. Many students just don’t have any examples of someone who has gone to college in their lives.

Read the full interview here.

The School of Literature, Media, and Communication is a unit of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.