Our National Poet Laureate

I haven't had much time to think about our new poet laureate, Phillip Levine.  So, I'm sharing with all of you as a first step. 


As a first impression, I do note that this is yet another white male poet laureate...which has been the case every year for the past 10 years except for Louise Gluck in 2003-2004.  The Librarian of Congress has been in his position for about 25 years, and I just can't help but wonder if his Princeton education has given him a fairly narrow view of what outstanding American poetry looks and sounds like. 


But I share those merely as first impressions and not as an educated opinion for or against the choice of Phillip Levine.  I am working on becoming better acquainted with Levine's work.  After my poetry genre course this fall, I'm sure I'll have something more substantial to put forth.  For now, I'm happy to share his poem, Alone.


Alone
Sunset, and the olive grove flames
on the far hill.  We descend
into the lunging shadows
of goat grass, and the air

deepens like smoke.
You were behind me, but when I turned
there was the wrangling of crows
and the long grass rising in the wind

and the swelling tips of grain
turning to water under a black sky.
All around me the thousand
small denials of the day

rose like insects to the flaming
of an old truth, someone alone
following a broken trail of stones
toward the deep and starless river.