Postscripts

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Poets Laureate Appointed

To become the poet laureate of Texas, you must be appointed, in a somewhat nebulous process, by the Texas State Poet Laureate Selection Committee, whose members -- various senators and representatives -- seek advice from academics and writers about who merits designation as the poet laureate. Once that's over with, and everyone on the committee has voted, you come to Austin to stand in the lieutenant governor's press room adjacent to the Senate Chamber in the State Capitol, where you officially become the poet laureate. Texas senators and congressmen will say nice things about you, and, under the lights, waiting your turn to speak, you may think about how odd it is that politicians are the people deciding who the best poets are. Or maybe not. On August 21, James Hoggard flew from Wichita Falls, where he teaches English at Midwestern State University, to Austin to become, officially, the new Poet Laureate of Texas, and it didn't look like politics were foremost on his mind. The son of a preacher, and an eloquent speaker, Hoggard seemed grateful to be receiving his post. "I accept this honor," he said, "with a great deal of ... I'm not going to say humility, I'm going to say pride because I think it represents something that is very important to me. And before I read a couple of poems, I want to mention something very personal," which was when he noted the presence of his mother, his wife, his friend Carolyn Osborn, the president of the Texas Institute of Letters, and Jan Reid, another writer who was also an early student of Hoggard's. "It was the spring of 1968," Reid recalled after the press conference. "It was my last semester there [at Midwestern] and I was really intimidated because I was a history major and I hadn't taken any literature courses or anything and he seemed so urbane and sophisticated and smoked a pipe and wore tweeds and all that, you know."

This year is actually the first time since 1993 that a poet laureate has been appointed, and, as if making up for lost time, the committee appointed two poets laureate for the biennium rather than just one. Walt McDonald, who teaches at Texas Tech in Lubbock, will be the poet laureate in 2001. "For me, the best thing about it is what I hope these appointments will say to Texas writers," McDonald said when accepting the honor. "A happy affirmation of thousands of Texans who write and millions of us who gladly read. I'm amazed to be here today. When I was a boy growing up in Lubbock, I didn't want to write ... "

Hoggard and McDonald are some of the most thoroughly accomplished poets in the entire state, and it's easily apparent that they both deserve the honor. But poets and politicians have rarely been a good combination; the ceremony in the press room was so inoffensive it was offensive. Where are the angry poets, and why don't they ever want to be poet laureate?!

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Etc.

What will Barnes & Noble do? First Dave Hamrick, who left the company on August 18 for newly founded Taylor Wilson, a publishing company based in Houston, and now Diane Everman, who first began handling author events at the Westlake store and then at Homestead, is moving to St. Louis. They both had a way of inviting authors in that belied B&N's status as a faceless corporate behemoth... Liz Carpenter will be talking about her new book Start With a Laugh: An Insider's Guide to Roasts, Toasts, Eulogies, and Other Speeches at Barnes & Noble Westlake on Thursday, September 7, at 7:30pm.