so Louise Gluck is the new poet laureate. let me take a moment out of my lunch to say that she is an excellent writer. As a matter of fact, I gave a copy of Meadowlands (her fifth book, I believe) to Sabrina for her birthday just this past Sunday, believing that her ability to intertwine the strange and surprising image with highly grounded, everyday language would complement Sabrina's lyrical/narrative bent.

that said, ADRIENNE RICH SHOULD BE THE POET LAUREATE OF THESE UNITED STATES. and I know it's not going to happen -- the highly political Jewish lesbian, poet laureate of a country that thinks that calling deep-fried potatoes "freedom fries" is an act of patriotism? not likely. But the woman has every kind of qualification you could imagine -- except safe politics. I mean, check it out:

Poetry

A Change of World (Yale UP, 1951)

The Diamond Cutters and Other Poems (Harper, 1955)

Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law: Poems, 1954-1962 (Harper, 1963; rev. ed., Norton, 1967)

Necessities of Life (Norton, 1966)

Leaflets: Poems, 1965-1968 (Norton, 1969)

The Will to Change: Poems, 1968-1970 (Norton, 1971)

Diving into the Wreck: Poems, 1971-1972 (Norton, 1973)

Poems: Selected and New, 1950-1974 (Norton, 1974)

Twenty-One Love Poems (Effie's Press, 1977)

The Dream of a Common Language: Poems, 1974-1977 (Norton, 1978)

A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far: Poems, 19 78- 1981 (Norton, 1981)

Sources (Heyeck Press, 1983)

The Fact of a Doorframe: Poems Selected and New, 1950- 1984 (Norton, 1984)

Your Native Land, Your Life (Norton, 1986)

Time's Power: Poems, 1985-1988 (Norton, 1988)

An Atlas of the Difficult World: Poems, 1988-1991 (Norton, 1991)

Collected Early Poems, 1950-1970 (Norton, 1993)

Dark Fields of the Republic, 1991-1995 (Norton, 1995)


Prose

Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution (Norton, 1976, rev. ed., 1986)

On Lies, Secrets and Silence: Selected Prose, 1966- 1978 (Norton, 1979)

Blood, Bread and Poetry: Selected Prose, 1979-1986 (Norton, 1986)

What Is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics (Norton, 1993)

PLUS a new book of essays and a new book of poems ("FOX") since that list was put together.

*sigh*

in other news, I'm reading Marilyn Nelson's selected poems ("Fields of Praise") and Tory Dent's "HIV, Mon Amour" simultaneously, going back to what I used to do in grad school: read books with vastly differing styles in hopes of some organic fusion in my own work. more on that later.