Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry
About the New Poet Laureate, Ted Kooser
On making the appointment, Billington said, “Ted Kooser is a major poetic voice for rural and small town America and the first Poet Laureate chosen from the Great Plains. His verse reaches beyond his native region to touch on universal themes in accessible ways.” The author of ten collections of poetry, most recently “Delights & Shadows” (2004), Kooser was born in Ames, Iowa, in 1939. He earned his bachelor’s degree at Iowa State University in 1962 and his master’s degree at the University of Nebraska in 1968. Kooser’s other collections of poetry include “Sure Signs” (1980), which received the Society of Midland Authors Prize for the best book of poetry by a midwestern writer published in that year; “One World at a Time” (1985); “Weather Central” (1994); and “Winter Morning Walks: One Hundred Postcards to Jim Harrison” (2000), winner of the 2001 Nebraska Book Award for Poetry. A book of his essays, “Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps” (2002), won the Nebraska Book Award for Nonfiction in 2003. The book was also chosen as the Best Book Written by a Midwestern Writer for 2002 by Friends of American Writers, and it won the Gold Award for Autobiography in ForeWord Magazines Book of the Year Awards. Kooser is also the author, with his longtime friend Jim Harrison, of “Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry” (2003), for which the two poets received the 2003 Award for Poetry from the Society of Midland Authors. Among Kooser’s other awards and honors are two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, the Pushcart Prize, the Stanley Kunitz Prize, the James Boatwright Prize and a Merit Award from the Nebraska Arts Council. He is a visiting professor in the English department of the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. About the Previous Laureate, Louise Glück
On August 28, 2003, Librarian of Congress James H. Billington announced the appointment of Louise Glück as the Library's 12th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry. She will take up her duties in the fall, opening the Library's annual literary series on Tuesday, Oct. 21 with a reading of her work. Glück succeeds Robert Penn Warren, Richard Wilbur, Howard Nemerov, Mark Strand, Joseph Brodsky, Mona Van Duyn, Rita Dove, Robert Hass, Robert Pinsky, Stanley Kunitz and Billy Collins. Louise Glück is the author of nine books of poetry, including "The Seven Ages" (Ecco Press, 2001); "Vita Nova" (1999), which was awarded The New Yorker magazine's Book Award in Poetry; Meadowlands (1996); "The Wild Iris" (1992), which received the Pulitzer Prize and the Poetry Society of America's William Carlos Williams Award; "Ararat" (1990), which received the Library of Congress's Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry; and "The Triumph of Achilles" (1985), which received the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Boston Globe Literary Press Award, and the Poetry Society of America's Melville Kane Award. Louise Glück has also published a collection of essays, "Proofs and Theories: Essays on Poetry" (1994), which won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for Nonfiction. This fall, Sarabande Books will publish in chapbook form a new, six-part poem, "October." In 2001 Yale University awarded Louise Glück its Bollingen Prize in Poetry, given biennially for a poet's lifetime achievement in his or her art. Her other honors include the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry, the Sara Teasdale Memorial Prize (Wellesley, 1986), the M.I.T. Anniversary Medal (2000), and fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller foundations and from the National Endowment for the Arts. She is a member of the American Academy & Institute of Arts & Letters, and in 1999 was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. In 2003 she was named as the new judge for the Yale Series of Younger Poets and will serve in that position through 2007. A resident of Cambridge, Massachusetts, Glück has taught at Williams College since 1983 and teaches courses in the writing of poetry and in contemporary poetry as the Margaret Bundy Scott Senior Lecturer in English. More information on Louise Glück is available at: Library of Congress Press Release: Former Poet Laureate, Billy Collins
On June 21, 2001, Billy Collins was appointed as the Library's new Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry. In 2002, he was appointed to a second term, continuing through 2003. He is Distinguished Professor of English at Lehman College, City University of New York, where he has taught for the past 30 years. He is also a writer-in-residence at Sarah Lawrence College and served as a Literary Lion of the New York Public Library. View cybercasts of Collins' at the Library of Congress. Billy Collins' books of poetry include: His other awards and honors include: More information on Billy Collins is available at: Former Poet Laureate Stanley Kunitz
Stanley Kunitz, who occupied the Chair of Poetry at the Library from 1974 through 1976 as Consultant in Poetry (before the title was changed to “Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry” with the passage in 1985 of P.L. 99-194), was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1905. His ten books of poetry include Passing Through: The Later Poems, New and Selected (W.W. Norton, 1995), which won the National Book Award; Next-to-Last Things: New Poems and Essays (1985); The Poems of Stanley Kunitz, 1928-1978, which won the Pulitzer Prize; The Testing-Tree (1971); and Intellectual Things (1930). He also co-translated Orchard Lamps by Ivan Drach (1978), Story under Full Sail by Andrei Voznesensky (1974), and Poems of Akhmatova (1973), and edited The Essential Blake (1987), Poems of John Keats (1964), and The Yale Series of Younger Poets (1969-77). His other honors include the National Medal of the Arts (presented to him by President Clinton in 1993), the Bollingen Prize, a Ford Foundation grant, a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship, Harvard’s Centennial Medal, the Levinson Prize, the Harriet Monroe Poetry Award, a senior fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Shelley Memorial Award. He was designated State Poet of New York, and is a Chancellor Emeritus of the Academy of American Poets. A founder of the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and Poets House in New York City, he taught for many years in the graduate writing program at Columbia University. He lives in New York City and in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Former Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky (1997-2000)
Robert Pinsky was first appointed by Librarian of Congress James H. Billington in 1997, to be the ninth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry and the 39th person to occupy the Library’s poetry seat. He was then reappointed for a second term in 1998. A versatile scholar known for his probing poetry, Mr. Pinsky has wide interests and accomplishments in translation and in making poetry accessible through digital technology on the Internet. In commenting on his own appointment, Mr. Pinsky said: “American poetry has been one of our great national achievements. Along with the honor of following the American poets who have held this post, I have an opportunity to continue our appreciation of that treasure. I am very pleased.” Mr. Pinsky teaches in the graduate creative writing program at Boston University. He is the author of five books of poetry: Sadness and Happiness (1975); An Explanation of America (1980), awarded the Saxifrage Prize; History of My Heart (1984), which won the William Carlos Williams Prize; The Want Bone (1990); and The Figured Wheel: New and Collected Poems 1966-1996 (1996), which won the 1997 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize and was a Pulitzer Prize nominee. In 1999 he co-edited, with Maggie Dietz, Americans' Favorite Poems: The Favorite Poem Project Anthology. He has also published four books of criticism, including The Sounds of Poetry (1998), Poetry and the World (1988), and The Situation of Poetry (1977); two books of translation: The Inferno of Dante (1994), which received the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award, and The Separate Notebooks by Czeslaw Milosz (with Renata Gorczynski and Robert Hass); and a computerized novel, Mindwheel (1985). His honors include an American Academy of Arts and Letters award, Poetry magazine's Oscar Blumenthal prize, the William Carlos Williams Award, and a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship. He is poetry editor of the weekly Internet magazine Slate. About the Position of Poet LaureateThe Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress serves as the nation’s official lightning rod for the poetic impulse of Americans. During his or her term, the Poet Laureate seeks to raise the national consciousness to a greater appreciation of the reading and writing of poetry.
Each Laureate brings a different emphasis to the position. Joseph Brodsky initiated the idea of providing poetry in airports, supermarkets and hotel rooms. Maxine Kumin started a popular series of poetry workshops for women at the Library of Congress. Gwendolyn Brooks met with elementary school students to encourage them to write poetry. Rita Dove brought together writers to explore the African diaspora through the eyes of its artists. She also championed children's poetry and jazz with poetry events. Robert Hass organized the "Watershed" conference that brought together noted novelists, poets and storytellers to talk about writing, nature and community. Those interested in reading a more detailed history of the poetry consultantship at the Library of Congress should refer to William McGuire’s Poetry’s Catbird Seat: The Consultantship in Poetry in the English Language at the Library of Congress, 1937-1987 (Washington: Library of Congress, 1988. LC Call No.: Z733.U6M38 1988).
Poets Who Have Held the Library of Congress Poetry Position, 1937-Present
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Archer M. Huntington
Library of Congress
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