Class News
Sydney Lea '64 is Vermont's new poet laureate
SEPTEMBER 9 - MONTPELIER — The Vermont Arts Council is pleased to
announce that Gov. Peter Shumlin has appointed Sydney Lea of Newbury as
Vermont's next Poet Laureate to succeed Ruth Stone, whose four-year term
ends in 2011. A public ceremony honoring Mr. Lea will be held on Nov. 4
at the Capital Plaza Hotel in Montpelier. The ceremony will be attended
by Gov. Shumlin as part of an evening celebrating the arts in Vermont.
Sydney Lea lives in Newbury and has been a Vermont resident since the
early 1990s. He is the prolific author of a number of collections of
poetry, including Young of the Year (Four Way Books, 2011); Ghost Pain (Sarabande
Books, 2005); Pursuit of a Wound (University of Illinois Press, 2000);
To the Bone: New and Selected Poems (University of Illinois Press,
1996); Prayer for the Little City (Scribner's, 1989); No Sign
(University of Georgia Press, 1987); The Floating Candles (University of
Illinois Press, 1982), and Searching the Drowned Man (University of
Illinois Press, 1980).
Syd Lea has been described as "a man in the woods with his head full of
books, and a man in books with his head full of woods." Renowned as a
prose writer as well as poet, he has also published a novel and two
books of essays that combine the precision of an active naturalist and
ecologist with the erudition of a multilingual professor of literature.
His stories, poems, essays and criticism have appeared in The New
Yorker, The Atlantic, The New Republic, The New York Times,
Sports
Illustrated, Gray's Sporting Journal, and many other periodicals, as
well as in more than forty anthologies. Lea co-founded the literary
quarterly New England Review in 1977, oversaw its move to the Bread Loaf
Writers Conference at Middlebury College, and edited this esteemed
journal until 1989. His poetry collections have earned special critical
acclaim, with Pursuit of a Wound (2000) named one of three finalists
for the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. His preceding volume, To the Bone:
New and Selected Poems, was co-winner of the 1998 Poets' Prize, one of
the nation's highest honors for a single collection of poems.
Lea
has received fellowships from the Rockefeller, Fulbright, and Guggenheim
Foundations, and has taught at Dartmouth, Yale, Wesleyan, Vermont and
Middlebury Colleges as well as at Franklin College in Switzerland and
the National Hungarian University in Budapest. Lea has also been very
active for the past quarter century in land conservation and the
promotion of literacy. See
www.sydneylea.net.
The Advisory Committee found Sydney Lea's poetry to be virtuosic in
texture and form, yet likely to be engaging to a diversity of readers
and listeners because of the work's dramatic intensity, narrative
momentum, and musicality, and because of this poet's extraordinarily
evocative descriptions of northern New England's landscapes, animal and
plant life, and the seasonal panorama. Through all of his books, Lea has
paid particular attention to the stories of generations living alongside
one another in north-country villages, including the interactions of
"old-timers" and relative newcomers. He continues the tradition of
Vermont poets who are both singular — one of a kind — and broadly
accessible.
POET LAUREATE INFORMATION AND BACKGROUND HISTORY:
Robert Frost was declared Poet Laureate in 1961. In 1988 Governor Kunin
re-established the position of Poet Laureate, at that time referred to
as the State Poet (reference: Executive Order No 69, 1988). Galway Kinnell was the first State Poet named for a term of 4 years as a result
of this order. Since then Louise Glück, Ellen Bryant Voigt, and Grace
Paley have also held the position. Ruth Stone is the current Poet
Laureate and her term will end upon the installation of Sydney Lea in
November 2011. At Stone's investiture in 2007, Governor Douglas
returned the designation back to Poet Laureate.
CRITERIA:
The Vermont Poet Laureate is a person:
- who is a resident of Vermont; (Vermont being his/her primary residence)
- whose poetry manifests a high degree of excellence;
- who has produced a critically acclaimed body of work;
- who has a long association with Vermont.
- who agrees to participate from time to time in official ceremonies and readings at the Vermont State House and other locations.
The poet selected shall receive an honorarium of $1000 provided by the
Vermont Arts Council.
Since 1964, the Vermont Arts Council has been the state's primary
provider of funding, advocacy and information for the arts in Vermont.
It strives to increase public awareness of the positive role artists and
arts organizations play in communities and to increase opportunities for
Vermonters to experience the arts in everyday life. The Council is the
only designated State Arts Agency in the U.S. that is also an
independent, not-for-profit, membership organization. For more
information on the programs and services of the Vermont Arts Council,
visit
www.vermontartscouncil.org.