Charles Simic will be named the 15th poet laureate of the United States by the Librarian of Congress today, the New York Times is reporting. He succeeds Donald Hall.
Simic, who is 69, was born in Yugoslavia and immigrated to the U.S. at 16. After learning English he started writing poetry and to date has published 20 volumes. He won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1990 and was awarded a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant in 1984. He is a retired professor of American literature and creative writing at the University of New Hampshire. He is currently the poetry editor of The Paris Review and also writes for The New York Review of Books.
His last volume of poems, My Noiseless Entourage., was published by Harvest/Harcourt in 2005. A new collection, That Little Something, is due out from Harcourt early in 2008.
The U.S. poet laureate post was established in 1987. Laureates receive a $35,000 award plus a $5,000 travel allowance. Simic said he wasn't sure what cause he will champion in his new post.
