New Poet Laureate!
Philip Levine, a longtime singer of the working world, will succeed W.S. Merwin as our poet laureate. The Library of Congress will make the announcement today, but in the meantime, we can feast on a slew of good articles about Levine's appointment for the one-year term. According to the New York Times, Levine's grittiness proved key to his selection. Said librarian of Congress James Billington:
“I find him an extraordinary discovery because he introduced me to a whole new world I hadn’t connected to in poetry before.”
“He’s the laureate, if you like, of the industrial heartland,” Mr. Billington added. “It’s a very, very American voice. I don’t know that in other countries you get poetry of that quality about the ordinary workingman.”
Hence what remains one of Levine's iconic poems, "You Can Have It." A bit from that wrenching work:
....We were twenty
for such a short time and always in
the wrong clothes, crusted with dirt
and sweat. I think now we were never twenty.In 1948 in the city of Detroit, founded
by de la Mothe Cadillac for the distant purposes
of Henry Ford, no one wakened or died,
no one walked the streets or stoked a furnace,for there was no such year, and now
that year has fallen off all the old newspapers,
calendars, doctors’ appointments, bonds,
wedding certificates, drivers licenses.
In his interview with the Times, Levine reveals that, at some point in his 40s, he noticed the “tenderness” in others’ poems and thought, “Why isn’t there more tenderness in my own work?” His earlier anger, he notes, has been replaced by irony and love.
The poet laureate has no official responsibilities other than a couple of readings, explains the Washington Post, but may cook up projects. One of Levine’s ideas demonstrates that capacity for irony:
Mr. Levine said he had thought of proposing a project in which people would be asked to name the ugliest poem they could think of. “I knew they wouldn’t go for it,” he added, referring to the Library of Congress. “But I was trying to think of something a little light and humorous, to encourage people to think of poetry not quite so seriously.”
We’re into it.
More seriously, he’s considering bringing poets onto the radio for brief spots, and helping bring attention to “the enormous number of forgotten poets out there.” He adds: “I know a great many poems that I love and that most people have never heard of.”
Billington praised, in addition to Levine’s poetry, his “ironic and self-effacing nature,” which may explain the poet’s low-key response to his appointment.
He hadn’t particularly aspired to be poet laureate, Mr. Levine said, but he was pleased that after a long career, the honor had come his way. “How can I put it? It’s like winning the Pulitzer,” he explained. “If you take it too seriously, you’re an idiot. But if you look at the names of the other poets who have won it, most of them are damn good. Not all of them — I’m not going to name names — but most. My editor was thrilled, and my wife jumped for joy. She hasn’t done that in a while.”
For a smattering of Levine poems gathered by the New York Times, click here.
For even more poems (82!)—in addition to a bio and podcasts—click here.