An Outsider Becomes Poet Laureate

Philip Levine named to one-year post

(NEWSER) - Philip Levine has already won nearly every major prize for his poetry, including two Guggenheims and a Pulitzer, and now he's America's newest poet laureate. The Library of Congress named him to the one-year position today; he succeeds WS Merwin. Growing up, Levine hated "prissy" poetry, which led him to model his rhythms on radio preachers, NPR notes. More»

Why her brother's trysts with Mabel Loomis Todd matter

(NEWSER) - Salacious things were afoot in Emily Dickinson's family home: During the last two years of her life, her married brother, Austin, would leave his house next-door under the pretense of calling on his sisters—but instead would have sex with the also-married Mabel Loomis Todd on the dining room couch while the poet stayed squirreled away in her bedroom. We know this because the lovers kept detailed diaries—and we know more about how the affair shaped Dickinson's legacy by way of a new book. More»

TMZ reports poet's illness, Twitterers add 'RIP'

(NEWSER) - Contrary to reports by TMZ and scores of Tweets and re-Tweets, Maya Angelou is alive and well. The gossip site reported over the weekend that the poet missed a Los Angeles awards show because she had been hospitalized. In fact, she hadn't been invited to the presentation. The mix-up exhibited Twitter’s formidable power as an echo chamber. The poet quickly became the top trending topic on the site, with some members adding “RIP” to their Tweets, Reuters reports. More»

Unpublished correspondence up for sale

(NEWSER) - A collection of letters written by Lord Byron to a clergyman, some of them unpublished, sheds new light on the Romantic poet—who discloses his sexual escapades with servants and angry opinions of fellow writers. Several letters refer to a serving girl whom he took as his mistress; he dumped her after discovering she was unfaithful, even though he was, too. He also writes of his admiration for the Albanian pasha's hundreds of women and boys, "and very pretty creatures they were." More»

(NEWSER) - Britain's poet laureates have been criticized for writing about humdrum events on the royal calendar. If her first effort is any indication, the new laureate—the first woman—has no such intentions. Carol Ann Duffy is ticked off about the nation's scandal over lawmakers' expense accounts, and she lets everyone know it in her first poem, reports the Guardian. Politics "makes of your heart a fist," writes Duffy, who says of the poem only that it's about lost idealism. More»