Louise Glück named U.S. Poet Laureate

A sweet surprise to have the private poet Louise Glück selected as the public manifestation of poetry in the United States.

Stanley Kunitz, who was Poet Laureate in 1999, was also a model for the “A poem must not mean/but be” dynamic (from MacLeish’s “Ars Poetica”). What is the poet’s job? The poem. And Louise Glück has carved a life, struggling into being a great body of work.

Want to read her work? Consult our Louise Glück reference page. Want to talk about her appointment as Laureate -- or better yet, write a poem in response to her? Visit our Poetry Forum.