Poet Phyllis McGinley once said, "Not reading poetry is a national pastime." Let's hope that sad situation is at least partly corrected as a result of the attention generated by the selection this week of the nation's first female Poet Laureate.
Mona Van Duyn, a 71-year-old St. Louis native, was named by the Library of Congress to the prestigious post. It is a well-deserved honor.Six women poets have been poetry consultants in the more distant past, but that was before they could call themselves poet laureate.
Since the poet laureate title was added to the poetry consultant's job description in 1986, five male poets have held it - Roert Penn Warren, Richard Wilbur, Howard Nemerov, the University of Utah's Mark Strand and the most recent, Russian immigrant Joseph Brodsky.
Both Strand and Brodsky have been critical of the position for being "ill-defined and ill-paid," but Van Duyn is not worried. She is grateful for the honor and says she'll concentrate on the most clearly defined portion of her job - choosing among her fellow poets to come and read at the library, one of the most prestigious venues in the poetry world.
Unassumingly, she makes little of being the first woman to hold the title and much of the "enormous audience for poetry in America." Even though many people do not quietly read poetry, they come to poetry readings in great numbers, she says, "and watch the poet's lips move and the words come out."
She also notes that many people love to write poetry, all of which suggests "a love of language and a way to pay honor to it."
It is heartening to know that, and Van Duyn is an excellent choice to symbolize this growing love of poetry. Her most recent book of poems, "Near Change," won the Pulitzer Prize last year, and she has taken home nearly every other award the field has to offer.