Description
Book SynopsisThe American Poet Laureate shows how the state has been the silent center of poetic production in the United States since World War II. It is the first history of the national poetry office, the U.S. poet laureate.
Trade ReviewAmy Paeth’s book is a study of why poetry is, as T. S. Eliot claimed, so stubbornly national. Focusing on poet laureates, Cold Warriors, cultural diplomats, and inaugural poets, she historicizes and complicates this relationship. It’s the best sort of literary scholarship: smart, surprising, and field-changing. -- Juliana Spahr, author of
Du Bois's Telegram: Literary Resistance and State ContainmentThe American Poet Laureate is a compelling tale of intrigue, clashing nationalist politics, and the forging of what Paeth chillingly calls “state verse culture.” Starting with the amazing tale of Ezra Pound’s Bollingen Prize quickly followed by a detailed account of Robert Frost’s triumphalist inaugural poem, Paeth shows how the state’s investment in poetry often masks the ideological construction of both poetry and America. -- Charles Bernstein, author of
Topsy-TurvyWhy
The American Poet Laureate hasn’t been written until now is perplexing, but Amy Paeth’s enterprising report makes the wait worthwhile. Her diligent archival trawl is put to vivid and informative use throughout, and bringing the story up to the present combines historical perspective with news of the day. This is not just a book, it’s a public service, deftly revealing how “craft” is always also statecraft. -- Jed Rasula, author of
The American Poetry Wax Museum: Reality Effects, 1940-1990The U.S. poet laureateship was established during eras of global hot and then cold wars. Thus it was bound to get caught up in every manner of issue and problem except, even, at times, the poetic! Can one poet’s verse be aptly deemed official? Can a multi-regional, multi-cultural immigrant nation successfully and persuasively choose a single notion of verse to represent it? Does the poet’s characteristic ambivalence toward power ever befit a nationalist honor? Amy Paeth tells the whole fascinating story for the first time here. This book is a triumph of convergent modes of literary and institutional history. -- Al Filreis, University of Pennsylvania
This is a surprising, provocative, and convincing history of ongoing efforts by poetry’s advocates to borrow authority from state agencies. Poets from Robert Frost to Joy Harjo make plans for readers, could-be readers—even politicians. Now this art has honorable, reasonable intentions. Problem solved? -- Robert von Hallberg, author of
Lyric PowersThe American Poet Laureate is an important book, and one that should be pondered in creative writing programmes, by prize administrators and in the editorial offices of well-funded magazines. -- A. E. Stallings * Times Literary Supplement *
Recommended. * Choice Reviews *
Having spent over a decade in the Library of Congress archives, Paeth is well equipped to tell this history . . . [
The American Poet Laureate] offer[s] up a fresh analysis of how the US government and private entities have shaped the field of poetry. -- Christina Obolenskaya * Harvard Review *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Introduction
1. State Verse Scandals: The Bollingen Affair and Postwar Poets at the Library of Congress, 1945–1956
2. Inaugurating National Poetry: Robert Frost and Cold War Arts, 1956–1965
3. The Politics of Voice: The Poet-Critic, the Creative Writer, and the Poet Laureate, 1965–1990
4. Civil Versus Civic Verse: National Projects of U.S. Poets Laureate, 1990–2022
Epilogue: “An Invisible Berlin Wall”—the Cold War, the U.S. Inaugural Poem, and the Future of State Verse
Appendix I: Occupants of the U.S. National Poetry Office
Appendix II: Fellows in American Letters at the Library of Congress
Appendix III: U.S. Inaugural Poets
Notes
Bibliography
Index
