WHAT’S A POET LAUREATE FOR?: CSU writing prof David Milofsky asks (and somewhat answers) that question in his Aug. 14 Denver Post “Book Beat” column. Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper is looking for a poet laureate for the city to replace Lalo Delgado, named the city’s P.L. posthumously in 2004. It’s too bad Delgado was not named to this position while he was still alive. He was an energetic poet of the streets and barrios, and most of his work was self-published in chapbooks which he sold for five bucks. Over the years, he visited Wyoming to conduct residencies at Youth Alternatives in Cheyenne and in the state’s migrant schools. Anyway, a search committee has been impaneled and a new Denver Poet Laureate will be chosen some time this year. Milofsky notes that the state already has a laureate in CSU colleague Mary Crow. He asks: “One wonders how many poets laureate a state the size of Colorado really needs.” When Ben Jonson was named England’s Poet Laureate in 1616, pay consisted of “a butt (26 gallons) of canary wine,” says Milofsky. “This strikes me as an idea Denver could imitate, especially because we have a mayor who still owns an interest in a thriving brewpub. I can't speak for Denver's poets, but I would prefer a year's supply of pilsner to the salary they're offering.” Which is nothing, the same salary earned by WYO Poet Laureate David Romtvedt. Noting the tumultuous relationship between poets and The Powers That Be (Dryden v. British Government, Neruda v. Pinochet, Baraka v. New Jersey, etc.), Milofsky wonders where the Denver search committee will be able to agree on a candidate. He concludes: “Let's all look forward to the appointment of a new poet laureate for Denver as a means of building enthusiasm for the art in our town and giving us something new to argue about as winter comes on.”
