With summer’s heat coming on, my thoughts have turned to a few weeks of family time.
That and two more good things have brightened my somewhat dour disposition these days (and this from a guy voted Happy Go Lucky in his high school year book!). Thanks to Justice Roberts’ understanding that his loyalty is not to any particular party but to the American people, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has been upheld; it’s not enough, but it’s a start. And I’m thrilled that Natasha Trethewey has been named the Poet Laureate of the United States. I can think of no one better qualified or suited for the job; as PLOTUS, Natasha will bring her old school, no nonsense sensibilities and her tremendous energy to the task, and her poems will be read even more widely and so will open vistas (as her work has already done for so many of us) of cultural understanding for many thousands more Americans who are surely in need of what poetry can bring. As the good Dr. Williams had it,
My heart rouses
thinking to bring you news
of something
that concerns you
and concerns many men. Look at
what passes for the new.
You will not find it there but in
despised poems.
It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there.