Poets Laureate Proliferating

In the last 10 years, the idea of appointing Poets Laureate has filtered down through the states to the local level all over the U.S. Sometimes it feels as if there’s a “Poet Laureate” political party campaigning to institute official poets in local governments everywhere, now that the office is well established in the federal government and almost all of the states. Witness the article that greeted me in this morning’s newspaper:

from The San Francisco Chronicle:
“Poets laureate bloom like spring in Bay Area,” by Charles Burress
“...the job of community poet laureate may be the Bay Area’s fastest-growing profession. A decade ago, there was just one — the newly named first poet laureate of San Francisco, Lawrence Ferlinghetti.... Marin pushed the local total to 13 on Friday, consolidating the Bay Area’s pre-eminence in the field. The nine-county area surrounding San Francisco Bay holds 20 percent of the state’s population and 57 percent of the state’s 23 local poets laureate. Albany and Dublin will raise the Bay Area total to 15. Elsewhere in the state, Siskiyou County plans to add one within a year.... Most states have state poets laureate, and California claims to have been the first, with Ina Coolbrith appointed by Gov. Hiram Walker in 1915.”

I wonder if this is a good thing. I’ve never had much respect for poetry written to order — and yet how can it be a bad idea for so many poets to receive support from their local communities? This is not the same as asking whether poets belong in political office — but I’d welcome your comments.
~Poetry Guide Margy Snyder

Related resources:
Poets Laureate, a brief history
Poets Laureate of the U.S.A., a Net-annotated list

Our profiles of recent U.S. Poet Laureates
Charles Simic (2007- )
Donald Hall (2006-2007)
Ted Kooser (2004-2006)
Louise Glück (2003-2004)
Stanley Kunitz (2000-2001)
Robert Pinsky (1997-2000)