[New-Poetry] Re: laureate

[David Graham]

It's probably wishful thinking to believe that any President has much  
input or desire for input on decisions about Poets Laureate.  NEA  
Chair, maybe.  Officially, the poet is chosen by the Librarian of  
Congress, after due consultation, which as I imagine it probably  
includes at least a call to the White House or some sort of vetting  
process.  But I'm not sure:  does anyone actually know?  Could be  
that any oversight is up to Congress, not the White House.

Anyway, for the Laureate I imagine that the selection process is  
handed off to someone considerably lower on the food chain than  
anyone in the Oval Office.  Of course, any Librarian of Congress  
would possess a certain amount of political savvy.  So it would be  
expected that he would not name someone who might cause embarrassment  
to the administration--so don't look for Amiri Baraka to be named any  
time soon.  Likewise it was never Ginsberg (or even Lowell during  
Vietnam--he served one stint, in 1947-8).

Perhaps the most shocking omission has been Adrienne Rich.  But I'm  
sure she would have been eliminated from consideration early in the  
vetting process, for the obvious reasons.

In any case, as I ritualistically announce when this subject arises,  
the PL position is *not* government funded.  It's run on a private  
endowment, administered by the Library of Congress.  And since the  
stipend is probably a third or less of what the average full  
professor makes, it's not exactly a "job" in the usual sense.  There  
are very few duties, and the recent public initiatives undertaken by  
Dove, Hass, Pinsky, Collins, et al. have been unrequired labors of love.

Not that I'm crying over the shameful exploitation of Robert Pinsky  
or Ted Kooser.  I'm sure the honor is a real gravy train in terms of  
ancillary stuff--readings, lecture fees, books back in print, calls  
from NPR, etc.

I don't see that the position does much harm, and, in the case of  
something like Collins's Poetry 180 project, I've seen at first hand  
the good that can result.  Talk to a high school teacher of English  
sometime about that one.


========================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu

Home Page:
http://web.mac.com/drjazz

Poetry Library:
http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
==========================================



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/pipermail/new-poetry/attachments/20080505/e9e1a148/attachment.html