The American Poet Laureate

Al Filreis, University of Pennsylvania:
The U.S. poet laureateship was established during eras of global hot and then cold wars. Thus it was bound to get caught up in every manner of issue and problem except, even, at times, the poetic! Can one poet’s verse be aptly deemed official? Can a multi-regional, multi-cultural immigrant nation successfully and persuasively choose a single notion of verse to represent it? Does the poet’s characteristic ambivalence toward power ever befit a nationalist honor? Amy Paeth tells the whole fascinating story for the first time here. This book is a triumph of convergent modes of literary and institutional history.

Jed Rasula, author of The American Poetry Wax Museum: Reality Effects, 1940-1990:
Why The American Poet Laureate hasn’t been written until now is perplexing, but Amy Paeth’s enterprising report makes the wait worthwhile. Her diligent archival trawl is put to vivid and informative use throughout, and bringing the story up to the present combines historical perspective with news of the day. This is not just a book, it’s a public service, deftly revealing how “craft” is always also statecraft.

Charles Bernstein, author of Topsy-Turvy:
The American Poet Laureate is a compelling tale of intrigue, clashing nationalist politics, and the forging of what Paeth chillingly calls “state verse culture.” Starting with the amazing tale of Ezra Pound’s Bollingen Prize quickly followed by a detailed account of Robert Frost’s triumphalist inaugural poem, Paeth shows how the state’s investment in poetry often masks the ideological construction of both poetry and America.

Juliana Spahr, author of Du Bois's Telegram: Literary Resistance and State Containment:
Amy Paeth’s book is a study of why poetry is, as T. S. Eliot claimed, so stubbornly national. Focusing on poet laureates, Cold Warriors, cultural diplomats, and inaugural poets, she historicizes and complicates this relationship. It’s the best sort of literary scholarship: smart, surprising, and field-changing.