Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents vii
3. Acknowledgments ix
4. Introduction 1
5. I State Verse Scandals: The Bollingen Affair and Postwar Poets at the Library of Congress, 1945– 1956 27
6. II Inaugurating National Poetry: Robert Frost and Cold War Arts, 1956– 1965 63
7. III The Politics of Voice: The Poet- Critic, the Creative Writer, and the Poet Laureate, 1965– 1990 100
8. IV Civil Versus Civic Verse: National Projects of U.S. Poets Laureate, 1990– 2022 150
9. Epilogue “An Invisible Berlin Wall,” the U.S. Inaugural Poem, and the Future of State Verse 192
10. APPENDIX I Occupants of the U.S. National Poetry Office 209
11. APPENDIX II Fellows in American Letters at the Library of Congress 212
12. APPENDIX III U.S. Inaugural Poets 213
13. Notes 215
14. Bibliography 275
15. Index 295