US POETS LAUREATE TO THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS: A LITERARY AND CULTURAL HISTORY by TONI M HOLLAND Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Arlington in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON December 2011 Copyright © by Toni M. Holland 2011 All Rights Reserved ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am tremendously grateful for the support of my dissertation committee. The reviews contributed to key developments in the writing process of this project. I am particularly thankful for the support of my dissertation director, Tim Morris. My interest in this project began in a graduate course I took with him; he has encouraged my work on poets laureate from that first seminar discussion and through subsequent semesters and chapter drafts. In addition to being a fine director, he has supported my passion for poetry since I began my MA studies here at UTA. It means quite a lot to me that we have held so many discussions about poetry and that we have observed so many poems together. I am also thankful for the mentorship of Dr. Kevin Gustafson; although he was not on my committee, he has been another talented role model for emerging scholars in our English Department and has impacted my intellectual growth during graduate studies. Lastly, I would like to thank the English Department at UTA. Its English graduate program resulted in my having opportunities to study abroad in England, France, and Canada; I have been able to present my work at numerous conferences; the quality of instruction has resulted in my having been awarded many awards, fellowships, grants, and poet’s residencies; I have also been trained and nurtured as a teacher. All of this together reflects an education that I will continue to cherish. September 2, 2011 iii ABSTRACT US POETS LAUREATE TO THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS: A LITERARY AND CULTURAL HISTORY Toni M. Holland, PhD The University of Texas at Arlington, 2011 Supervising Professor: Tim Morris In 1985 the US Congress changed the title of Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress,which was created in 1937, to Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry. The significance in thechange is a signal to enhance awareness of American poetry to the general reading public. Thisdissertation is an initial look at these poets who from a government-sponsored platform represent American letters. The high profile of the position allows for a means by which the role of the poet is performed as an ambassador of poetry. Who is selected to represent the nation, how each laureate’s work is situated within contemporary poetry, and the ways in which each executes tenure of the appointment reflects how Congress has positioned the post as the “nation’s lightning rod for the poetic impulse of Americans.” There are three ways by which the dissertation critiques this appointment. Chapter One examines announcements of the appointments made by the Librarian of Congress and responses to them by journalists and poets. It shows an overall portrait of who has been chosen and why and addresses some of the ways in which the appointments have eclipsed particular demographics. Common themes that emerged in reviews of laureate’s work grouped laureates within distinctive discussions of contemporary poetics. Chapter Two addresses how Robert Penn Warren, Howard Nemerov, iv Richard Wilbur, Mona VanDuyn, and Donald Hall wrote metrical verse in decades that deemed non-metrical composition more fashionable. Their continuity of a more traditional formalism influences New Formalism and Expansionist poetics. The case of VanDuyn indicates that a gendering of metrical verse that took place in the 1960s and 70s has been particularly challenging to the woman writer who sought to critique culture from within the more traditionally received poetic forms. Chapter Three addresses the ways in which the work of Charles Simic, Joseph Brodsky, Ted Kooser, Mark Strand, Stanley Kunitz, and Robert Hass informs relationships between self and place. The laureateship reflects aesthetics from a sense of regional to international place. Chapter Four addresses the ways in which Rita Dove, Robert Pinsky, Billy Collins, Louise Glück, and Kay Ryan forge poetic identities and signatures. Chapter Five investigates poetry programs laureates have founded either before or during tenure: Kunitz (Poets House, Fine Arts Work Center), Brodsky (free mass distribution of poetry books), Kooser (American Life in Poetry), Hass (River of Words/Watershed Project), Rita Dove (the town hall meeting), Robert Pinsky (Favorite Poem Project), and Billy Collins (Poetry 180). The Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry has culled preeminent women and men of American letters. This project requires sustained attention as there are newly appointed laureates every year or two. Continued critique of the appointments will document the ways in which the Library of Congress identifies the “poetic impulse” of Americans as well as the ways in which poetry programming reaches diverse communities. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................... ……………..iii ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................................... iv PREFACE ...................................................................................................................................... viii TIMELINE ....................................................................................................................................... xx Chapter Page 1. A PORTRAIT OF THE US POETS LAUREATE TO THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS……………………………………..………..….. ......................................... .1 2 AN AMERICAN MOVEMENT: A METER-MAKING ARGUMENT .............................. 24 3. GEOGRAPHY AND US LAUREATESHIP ................................................................... 52 4. POETS LAUREATE: FORGING SIGNATURES ........................................................ 110 5. PROJECTS OF THE US LAUREATES ..................................................................... 132 6 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................... 155 WORKS CITED ............................................................................................................................ 157 BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION ................................................................................................ 172 vii PREFACE There are only a few texts on the institution of laureateship. Two books offer a historical overview of the national poet in the United Kingdom. Walter Hamilton’s 1879 publication of The Poets Laureate of England acknowledges that it is “somewhat remarkable that so little should hitherto have been written about the office of Poet Laureate” (viiii). One possibility he saw for the lack of scholarship is that these poets do not necessarily represent England’s prominent poets and that some “might have been dismissed in one line of literary criticism” (xi). Because the US has had less than thirty years to build a tradition of laureateship, we will need greater historical remove in order to estimate how individual poets will compare to their peers. For the UK tradition, “Davenant, Cibber, Southey” are examples of poets chosen for the appointment over the likes of “Shakespeare, Milton, Pope and Byron” (xi). In the long history of the UK position, political affiliation trumped poetic merit. The UK history carries a tenuous reputation. On one hand it is a designation by the royal family purporting the highest achievement for a poet. On the other, the benefits attached to the position such as salary and proximity to court opens up attacks on the poet as a paid sycophant. Hamilton positioned Ben Johnson as the first official laureate because he was the first to receive a salary. Hamilton covered the position up to Alfred Tennyson, offering one chapter on those who served a similar function, but preceded creation of an official status, referring to them as “Volunteer Laureates.” These include poets such as Chaucer, John Skelton, and Edmund Spencer. Hamilton offered biographical sketches pertaining to laureates’ tenure and summaries of their works composed during their tenures. Quite a few years later, in 1921, Edmond Kemper Broudus published The Laureateship: A Study of the Office of Poet Laureate in England. He claimed that laureateship is “unique viii among national institutions” and that it deserves “a serious study of the usages, precedents, and traditions which contributed to the establishment of the office, and of the history of the office itself […] As far as [he knew], this attempt has not been made hitherto” (iiv). He held this claim in light of literary historian Edward Gibbon’s 1788 attack of laureateship in Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: Gibbon thought that that historical moment was “the best time for abolishing this ridiculous custom” (155). Broudus attributes a lack of scholarship on laureates to the times it “hovered on the verge of ridiculous” (iiv). He begins the historical account of laureates with John Dryden because he received a more frequent “pension from the crown” (iv). Broudus traces a long history of how the idea of laureateship developed in England, beginning with the “Anglo-Saxon scop” who wrote for the King and whose poetical works resulted in his advancement or banishment at court (1). The idea of laureateship developed