levine on upbeat poems

"I can’t believe this guy Barr is a poet, because I don’t think a real poet would think in that way. When a poem comes to you, you’re not going to say, 'Oh, no, this goddamned poem is just too mean-spirited.' You’re going to run with it."


philip levine (Detroit, MI, 1928), answering the question "I wonder if you agree with John Barr, the president of the Poetry Foundation, who, with the help of a $200 million endowment, has been trying to popularize poetry by encouraging poets to write more upbeat poems" in an interview published in The New York Times Sunday Magazine with the headline Philip Levine Still Knows How to Make Trouble, November 6, 2011

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Philip Levine appointed U.S. Poet Laureate

Philip Levine (Detroit, MI, 1928) was named today as the Library of Congress' 18th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry for 2011-2012, and will take up his duties on Monday, October 17th, during the annual literary season.



Levine succeeds W.S. Merwin as Poet Laureate and joins a long line of poets who have served in the position, including Kay Ryan, Charles Simic, Donald Hall, Ted Kooser, Louise Glück, Billy Collins, Stanley Kunitz and Robert Pinsky.



Levine is the author of 20 collections of poems, including News of the World, What Work Is, Ashes: Poems New and Old, and The Simple Truth, for which he was awarded the 1995 Pulitzer Prize.





Further reading:



Librarian of Congress Appoints Philip Levine Poet Laureate (Library of Congress)



More About Philip Levine - Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry (Library of Congress)



About the Position of Poet Laureate (Library of Congress)



Voice of the Workingman to Be Poet Laureate (The New York Times)



Profile of Philip Levine, poet laureate (The Washington Post)



Philip Levine interviews at The Cortland Review (1999, 2009, 2011 video interview), The Paris Review, The Atlantic



Philip Levine at the Poetry Foundation, Poets.org, The English Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, PBS.org and The New Yorker

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