On July 2, Henry Hart, the Hickman Professor of Humanities at the College of William and Mary. was sworn in as Virginia’s 17th Poet Laureate. This honorary position was codified into Virginia law in 1936, which states that the Poetry Society of Virginia (PSV), founded in 1923, will forward its recommendations to the Governor who will then appoint the nominee for a two year term. After an extensive search, Hart was nominated, and his candidacy was forwarded to the Governor’s office for final approval.
Qualifying to be poet laureate is no easy feat, and the process of selecting candidates is a months long process. After sifting through bios, web sites and piles of books, members of the PSV executive committee select Virginia poets who meet strictly established criteria — nominees must by Virginia residents for a minimum of 10 years, should have received honors and awards and should have significant publications, including at least one full-length book of poetry. Nominees do not need to be academics nor do they need to be members of PSV. However, they must have established themselves as serious poets who are recognized by their peers.
Once identified, the names of candidates are presented to the entire PSV membership for a vote. The poet who receives the most votes becomes the nominee, and his or her name is then recommended to the governor’s office for appointment.
Our new Poet Laureate, Henry Hart, has published four poetry books, the most recent being Familiar Ghosts (Orchises, 2014) His poems have appeared in journals such as the Southern Review, New Yorker, New England Review, Yale Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, and Kenyon Review. His biography James Dickey: The World as a Lie was runner-up for a Southern Book Critics Circle Award in 2000. He has also written scholarly books about the poetry of Robert Lowell, Seamus Heaney, and Geoffrey Hill. Wiley-Blackwell published his biography The Life of Robert Frost in 2017.
Below is my recent interview with Henry Hart, conducted just prior to his being sworn in.
Maggio: Tell us about your poetic journey. How did you first get interested in poetry? When did you first start writing? What prompted you to write and why poetry?
Hart: I first got interested in poetry in high school when I read a few poems by Robert Frost and a few poems in a large anthology titled Sunflower Splendor: Three Thousand Years of Chinese Poetry. My grandfather, who was a writer and fluent in Chinese after living and teaching in China, gave me the book of Chinese poetry as a birthday present. I first studied and wrote poetry seriously as an undergraduate at Dartmouth in the 1970s. My first English professor, Robert Siegel, assigned Robert Lowell’s “For the Union Dead” in an introductory course I had to take. That was my introduction to contemporary poetry. Siegel was an excellent poet who had studied under Lowell, and it was Siegel and then Jay Parini who encouraged me to write poetry. What I first reacted to while reading poetry was the beauty and expressive power of its language. I found some poems very stimulating and uplifting, so much so that I wanted to write poetry myself.
Maggio: Your poetry is very formal in nature. There is stanzaic regularity in many of your poems and your language is rich and dense. At the same time, it is modern in its rendering. How do you see the role of the poet in modern society? As a teacher, how do you get students to pay attention and to appreciate poetry?
Hart: I’ve always been attracted to different styles of poetry. The poetry I most admire is emotionally, intellectually, and aesthetically stimulating. I appreciate free verse as much as I do more conventional “formal” verse. Sometimes I write in traditional forms, but I’m not bound to traditional forms the way some poets are. I often find that writing in forms, whether traditional or self-invented, helps me compress my language. I also find that writing in forms can make me more creative.
Poets no longer play the sort of central role they used to enjoy. Years ago, before radios, TVs, cinemas, and other communication devices, the bard was counted on to entertain and enlighten audiences with the stories and histories of the community. In oral cultures before the invention of writing, the bards were the “great communicators.” Poets now play a more marginal role, but they still entertain and enlighten and enrich our lives by writing about personal and public events in memorable ways. I try to show my students how poets address issues that concern them in insightful, memorable ways.
Maggio: How do you see the state of poetry in today’s society? Is there a role for poetry in our digitalized age? Does poetry reflect the times or does it influence the times?
Hart: I answered some of this question in my previous remarks. A lot of poetry reflects the times, and it can also influence the times. Some critics of poetry echo Auden’s remark in his elegy for Yeats that “poetry makes nothing happen.” Seamus Heaney used to say that poetry never stopped a tank. But both Auden and Heaney and most other poets would acknowledge that words—especially when used in skillful ways—can move and change people. A lot of “political” speeches borrow phrases from poets. Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, for example, sometimes drew on Shakespeare’s poetic phrases in their most significant speeches. Over the past week, I’ve heard commentators on TV use phrases from poems by Langston Hughes and Seamus Heaney (without acknowledging the sources). In the past, I’ve noticed that advertisers frequently use famous phrases from Robert Frost’s poems. Poetic language is used because the users believe that it will have more of an effect on people than ordinary language. So to those people who say: “Poetry is dead,” I say: “It’s very much alive. It’s being spoken or sung or written all around you. You just don’t recognize it.”
Maggio: How did you feel when you were told you would be the next Virginia Poet Laureate?
Hart: I felt a sense of gratitude and humility. It was an honor to be appointed poet laureate, but I also realized that there are many very talented, accomplished poets in Virginia. In a way, I’d like to share the laureateship with them.
Maggio: What are your goals for your tenure as Virginia Poet Laureate? How would you define the role of Poet Laureate and what are some of the responsibilities involved?
Hart: I hope to be a good ambassador for poetry. As I visit different groups around the state, I plan to read my poems and also explain how poetry can play a significant role in today’s world.
Maggio: You and I are both executive committee members of the Poetry Society of Virginia and share the goal of making the society more visible in the state and raising its profile. What are some of challenges facing the society and what should we do to meet those challenges?
Hart: One of the challenges facing the Poetry Society of Virginia is a financial one. I’ve raised funds for the Society in the past, and I hope to continue to do so in the future—especially since one funding source recently dried up. I’m especially eager to find a permanent location for our annual poetry festival and a permanent endowment to better fund it. I’ve recently been working with a number of people in the administration at the College of William and Mary, where I teach, so that we can hold the festival in our English Dept. building. I recently got permission and some financial help to make that possible. I’ve also made progress with my fund-raising for the festival.
Maggio: The Poetry Society of Virginia was founded at William & Mary, where you are a distinguished professor of English, in 1923. As we approach the 100-year anniversary of the organization, what do you envision for its future? As Virginia’s new Poet Laureate, what affect do you think you will have on its future?
Hart: I hope the Poetry Society will keep promoting poetry around Virginia, as it has done since 1923. If I can help with that activity and if I can increase funding and help the annual poetry festival in other ways, I will consider my tenure as poet laureate a success.
