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Thursday, June 7, 2012

Books For the First Time in Years, Our Poet Laureate Is Not a White Man in His Eighties

Posted by Paul Constant on Thu, Jun 7, 2012 at 4:00 PM

Natasha Tretheway is the new poet laureate of the United States of America:

Despite her relative youth, Trethewey has logged accomplishments, notably receiving the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for her collection "Native Guard." She is the author of two prior poetry collections, "Domestic Work," (2000) and "Bellocq’s Ophelia" (2002), and the 2010 nonfiction book, "Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast." Another collection of poetry, "Thrall," is set to be published later this year...she is the first African American poet laureate since Rita Dove, who served from 1993 through 1995.

As ever, the invaluable Poets.org has an author page for Tretheway featuring poems for you to read and recordings of Tretheway reading her own work. I like "Letter Home" a whole lot.

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Comments (6) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment

If by "years" you mean two years, then I guess you are correct.

Posted by DOUG.

on June 7, 2012 at 4:07 PM

@1, and just before Merwin Kay Ryan, appointed at 53, now apparently well forgot.

Posted by gloomy gus on June 7, 2012 at 4:22 PM

There really hasn't ever been a bad poet laureate of the United States, and a lot of them have been insanely good, Thretheway included.

Posted by Cephalodude on June 7, 2012 at 5:07 PM

Who cares? It's not like Byron was ever poet laureate in his own nation.

Posted by Central Scrutinizer on June 7, 2012 at 7:08 PM

I suppose "2" is, in fact, years, but Kay Ryan rocked. Also a lesbian, if anyone cares, and that's about as far from a white man in his 80s as you can get, in poetry-world.

Posted by Karina on June 7, 2012 at 9:12 PM