Here's a map of the location of past US Poet Laureates. What do you think?

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&cli...

I think it has as much to do with population as anything else. Compared to the Northeast and Midwest, the west is sparsely populated (until you get to the coast). No conspiracy, I'd venture.

Who picks the US Poet Laureates? That could be the problem.

The mayors of Boston, New York, Baltimore, Cleveland, and DC.

MAP wrote: "Who picks the US Poet Laureates? That could be the problem."

The Library of Congress has an official who picks the poet for the US

Ah, well. There it is.

Where is the Library of Congress? Seattle?

I think it is in Nancy Pelosi's backyard.

carol (akittykat) wrote: "I think it is in Nancy Pelosi's backyard."

LOL!!!

kind of up your way hehehehe

Does she live out here???
I guess that would make sense, she's always reminded me of Gloria Allred for some reason. I try not to dwell on that :)

I have always thought that the Poet Laureate position was a paying gig that got passed around through the fraternity of academic poets as a reward for time served sort of like editorship of Best American Poetry, Pulitizers, and National Book Awards. Since poetry doesn't pay, everybody needs to have a chance to make a living.

Frederick Seidel, who is independently wealthy, doesn't show up on the laureate list. Nor does Allen Ginsberg, who may have been one of the few poets to make a living from books and readings. I wonder how many of the laureates have participated in the Iowa or the Stanford writing programs, and how many have had dinner together informally before and after appointment.

The broader question is what do you want a laureate to be? A great poet? Somebody who markets poetry effectively to a general audience? Somebody who is presentable as a representative of the American people? All of the above?

I find that there was an anti-poet laureate elected by the Poetics list at SUNY Buffalo a few years ago to protest Billy Collins.

He is Anselm Hollo and he teaches at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University in Boulder Colorado. From what I can tell geography had nothing to do with it. The complaint was that Collins's poetry wasn't as challenging as Hollo's.

Here's a Hollo sample:

“the ideal story is that of two people
who go into love step for step
with a fluttered consciousness
like a pair of children venturing together
into a dark room” yeah right but then
then it’s LIGHTS! CAMERA! ACTION!
& the relentless Surroundarama
Split-Screen Spectacle of
Everyday Life & Things to Do
but it’s still a terrific idea
since being what or who is also just with
in days and nights of beaucoup conscious disquiet
though sometimes it’s not so easy
to reinsert oneself into the mortal coil


give up your ampersands & lowercase ‘i’s
they still won’t like you
the bosses of official verse culture
(U.S. branch) but kidding aside
I motored off that map a long time ago
yet have old friends
still happily romping in the English lyric
and Reverdy! dear Reverdy! so much of him rhymes
it must be poésie ma chérie …
looks at the stacks of books on the floor
gods help us, dear poets
pass the salt pass the mustard
hike the present
or the hypothetically honest horse-drawn past

*************

I am not sure that I see the challenge here. The issue is really which school of poetry gets the recognition. (I would say it's about which one gets the money, but the notes on the Poetics list suggest that they were appalled by the fact the NYT mentioned money several times in the article about the appointment.)