When the City of Rochester chose Jennifer White as poet laureate, they didn't pick a shrinking violet.

White, who will be honored at a reception on Saturday evening, says her first objective is to establish a poet laureate program, akin to the one in Portsmouth. That means applying for grants and seeking sponsorship.

"I have a gazillion ideas, but I need help and I need money," White says. "I think we need to be a nonprofit so we can get funding and establish this as a stable and long-term program in this city. If we can find people willing to serve on committee and to help write grants, then the sky is the limit."

Money is the first step toward supporting arts in the community, she says.

"People are pretty comfortable with the stereotype of the starving artist, everyone likes to have poets and artists at events because it adds cultural flair, but I'm committed to finding funding," White says. "Artists, writers, poets, potters and actors are as important to our culture as professional athletes and CEOs. These programs should be funded."

The city only recently created the official post, which is unfunded, to "promote the influence of poetry and enrich the lives of citizens by sharing and encouraging the gift of poetry," according to the program mission statement White was selected by an advisory committee comprised of Marie Harris, immediate past poet laureate of New Hampshire; Pat Frisella, current president of the Poetry Society of New Hampshire; Pam Hubbard, chairman of the library Board of Trustees; and Susan Schwake-Larochelle, co-owner of Artstream.

White, a resident of East Rochester, earned an undergraduate degree from the University of New Hampshire. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 1997 and graduated from Emerson College with an MFA in 1999. Until recently, she was teaching English at Somersworth, then Spaulding high schools.

She says she was motivated to apply because, after leaving her position as an English teacher at Spaulding High, this was "kind of a way for me to maintain my connection to the community. I'm especially interested in the teen population. I really miss my students a lot. It was a way to have a little bit more control over my destiny than I had as a teacher. So it's a way to serve the community and be in the community but to have more autonomy than I had as a teacher."

She says she's heard interest in a hoot night and a public art project like the recent Voice and Vision program created by Portsmouth Poet Laureate John Perrault. The connection to the Port City isn't coincidental.

"As a Portsmouth transplant, I want Rochester to be more like Portsmouth. I moved here because I could afford a duplex with a mortgage that's the same as rent in Portsmouth. Artists are getting shut out there. More and more artistic people are moving north, and quite frankly that's where I want to see our city go," White says. "I want more culture in this town. We deserve it. ... Poetry and the arts are valuable. Those programs are getting cut from our schools, they're under-funded. It's just wrong. Our human spirits need the arts."

White says her poetry can be darker than people might expect, that it's not about blue skies and buzzing bees. "I have a daughter with congenital heart disease. A lot of my poetry is about scars, painful rites of passage. ... It's not sentimental. I think even the most painful poetry, hopefully it does have a sense of hope or we'd all just go down into despair, but I love a poem that breaks my heart."

White will read from her poetry at the reception in her honor, sponsored by Artstream, The Poetry Society of New Hampshire and the City of Rochester, on Saturday, March 19 at 7 p.m. at Artstream, 56 North Main St., Rochester. The celebration will be held in the main gallery at Artstream surrounded by work inspired by a visit to Tuscany and will also include poetry readings from Leslie Snow, John-Michael Albert, Neil English, Pat Frisella and a special Italian performance by Andrew Periale of Perry Ally Theater. For more information or directions visit www.artstreamstudios.com or call 603-330-0333.