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Article: N.J.'s Poet Laureate Counters Trend
- Article from:
- AP Online
- Article date:
- October 9, 2002
- Author:
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NEW YORK (AP) _ The mandate for Amiri Baraka, New Jersey's politicized
poet laureate, is as harmless as a nursery rhyme: "Promote and encourage
poetry within the state and ... give two public readings within the
state each year."
There are no official restrictions, but poets laureate _ in New Jersey
and nationwide _ are expected to please more than provoke. Part of
the news about Baraka, who has been strongly criticized for writing
allegedly anti-Semitic verse, is that a poet laureate is actually
making news.
"I think that in such a capacity, one is necessarily restrained and
that it does cast a certain cloud over one's freedom of ...