Poet Laureate

As if her life weren't electrifying enough, lightning struck Rita Dove's home last September, destroying her husband's study and a lot of her archives. At the time, she had planned to spend the fall writing her second novel. Instead, "we spent the fall looking for faucet fixtures," the former two-term poet laureate of the United States (1993-95) lamented in a recent interview. The first time lightning struck, figuratively at least, was in 1987, when Dove, then 34, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for Thomas and Beulah, a volume of poems about her maternal grandparents.

Rachel Astarte Piccione has been named the 1996 Bucks County poet laureate. Chosen from more than 75 entries in the annual Bucks County Community College contest, Piccione's works were cited for their range and voice by the three judges. Her poetry has a "marvelously controlled intensity and an eye for details that gives significance to our lives," said Stanley W. Heim, director of the competition and a BCCC professor. Besides being a poet, Piccione, who lives in Bristol Township, is a performer, director and freelance writer, with a master's of fine-arts degree from Emerson College in Boston.

Former New Jersey poet laureate Amiri Baraka was back in the news recently. He didn't get what he wanted, but his case is a reminder that the state remains without a poet-laureate post that can promote poetry and the arts. Time to fix that. Baraka's over-the-top poem after 9/11 - "Somebody Blew Up America" - got him booted from the job by then-Gov. James McGreevey in late 2002. His appeal was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court this month. But Jersey officials went over the top, too - abolishing the laureate position in 2003, along with its $10,000 stipend.

Daniel G. Hoffman, 89, longtime Swarthmore resident, professor at Swarthmore College and the University of Pennsylvania, and onetime U.S. poet laureate, died Saturday at the Quadrangle independent living facility in Haverford. He was remembered fondly by students and fellow poets around the world as his latest book of poems was just being published. Mr. Hoffman was a mainstay in the local poetry world, much in evidence at prominent events such as the West Chester Poetry Conference and major venues such as Kelly Writers House at Penn.

Siduri Beckman, 14, swoons over George Eliot's Silas Marner with a passion many girls her age reserve for, say, One Direction boy-band phenom Harry Styles. "I loooove that book," she said, sitting in the auditorium at her school, Julia R. Masterman. Correction. She loves Eliot's Middlemarch first, then Silas Marner . But Philadelphia's first youth poet laureate - Mayor Nutter announced her title this week - has never read Harry Potter. If her tastes seem a little serious, Beckman herself is not. She explains that her parents, Karen and Michael Beckman of West Philadelphia, named her Siduri after the "bartender to the gods" in the Epic of Gilgamesh . The literary Siduri knows the secret of everlasting life, Beckman says.

As far as clocks - and it is time to think of them - I have one on my kitchen shelf and it is flat, with a machine-made flair, a perfect machine from 1948, at the latest, and made of shining plastic with the numbers sharp and clear and slightly magnified in that heartbreaking post-war style, the cord too short, though what does it matter, since the mechanism is broken and sits unplugged alongside a ...

As part of the Bucks County Poet Laureate Program silver anniversary celebration, Bucks County Community College recently named Allen Hoey of Newtown as the 2001 poet laureate. Hoey, a professor of language and literature at the college, was selected from more than 100 entries as Bucks County's 25th poet laureate by a panel of three published poets. Hoey will receive a $500 prize and a proclamation from the Bucks County commissioners at a special awards ceremony Dec. 19. Also as part of the honor, Hoey will join 2000 poet laureate Joseph Chelius in a poetry reading next Sunday at 2 p.m. in the Orangery building at the community college's Newtown campus, at 275 Swamp Rd. in Newtown.

America's next poet laureate, Rita Dove, was chosen last week - the first African American and, at 40, the youngest writer ever to hold the post. Dove, a professor of English at the University of Virginia, was chosen as "an outstanding representative of a new and richly variegated generation of American poets," Librarian of Congress James H. Billington said in announcing her appointment. She will assume the post in October. In both fiction and poetry, Dove has evoked the history of her family and the black experience in America.

New Jersey poet laureate Amiri Baraka is no stranger to controversy. He's built a career on it. Never one to shy away from thorny issues in his art, the 67-year-old writer now finds himself in the middle of a battle over freedom of speech and civic trust. Should the artist step down as the Garden State's poet laureate because four lines near the end of a 226-line poem repeat a widely discredited theory that Israel knew about the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attack in advance?

Bucks County Community College has announced that River Huston has been named the 1995 Bucks County poet laureate. A lecturer and AIDS activist, Huston, of New Hope, was chosen from more than 135 poets who competed for the title. Huston is the author of two books of poetry, Jesus Never Lived Here and the forthcoming Bones of Susan. She also wrote Living with HIV: A Book of Questions. Huston is a six-time winner of the Great New Hope Poetry Slam and has been a featured reader at the New Hope Performing Arts Festival.

The topics ranged from love and sex to history and time, but it was all poetry in motion Sunday at the Arts Bank in Center City. Among the recitals was a graphic short poem by Lamont B. Steptoe, "New Orleans," that described having nonviolent, sexual fun with women in the Big Easy. "Most people can't pull that off," Sean Lynch, 20, said. "It's so hard to pull off being vulgar in poetry. " Lynch, a student at Rutgers University's Camden campus, said he had been writing poetry for a decade but performed for the first time in a public forum during Sunday's 17th annual Poetry Ink. Lynch said Steptoe inspired him to go public.

Daniel G. Hoffman, 89, longtime Swarthmore resident, professor at Swarthmore College and the University of Pennsylvania, and onetime U.S. poet laureate, died Saturday at the Quadrangle independent living facility in Haverford. He was remembered fondly by students and fellow poets around the world as his latest book of poems was just being published. Mr. Hoffman was a mainstay in the local poetry world, much in evidence at prominent events such as the West Chester Poetry Conference and major venues such as Kelly Writers House at Penn.

Gossip professionals are under attack this week, targeted by celebs who slam us for distorting the truth. Miley Cyrus is mad over rumors she's split up with sweetheart Liam Hemsworth because she's been seen without her engagement ring. She says the bauble is out for repairs. Her pal Evan Rachel Wood tweets her support: "The fact that we live in a world which condones the stripping of basic human rights . . . of people because of their status, is very sad to me. " Yep, I've always dreamt of trampling on Wood's human rights!

Siduri Beckman, 14, swoons over George Eliot's Silas Marner with a passion many girls her age reserve for, say, One Direction boy-band phenom Harry Styles. "I loooove that book," she said, sitting in the auditorium at her school, Julia R. Masterman. Correction. She loves Eliot's Middlemarch first, then Silas Marner . But Philadelphia's first youth poet laureate - Mayor Nutter announced her title this week - has never read Harry Potter. If her tastes seem a little serious, Beckman herself is not. She explains that her parents, Karen and Michael Beckman of West Philadelphia, named her Siduri after the "bartender to the gods" in the Epic of Gilgamesh . The literary Siduri knows the secret of everlasting life, Beckman says.

I LOVE MY CAT. It sat on a mat. It's OK that it's fat.     I love that. That was the first poem written by Siduri Beckman, then 6 years old. It was terrible, she says now. But eight years later, her poetry has landed her a one-year gig as the city's first youth poet laureate. Mayor Nutter and Gary Steuer, the city's chief cultural officer, will make the announcement Monday evening in City Hall. Beckman, 14, a student at Julia R. Masterman School in Spring Garden who aspires to be a district attorney and eventually a Supreme Court justice, stood out among the 30 applicants.

'This is a town that's always been good at making stuff up," says Jamie J. Brunson. "Try the Declaration of Independence. Try the Constitution. Philly is a town that's always been built on its stories. " Brunson is executive director of the First Person Arts Festival, which, in its 11th annual installment, will soon gather professional storytellers from all over, in a fresh entertainment genre that's also maybe the oldest. Growing outward from meccas such as Los Angeles, Boston, and Chicago, storytelling has been its own genre for decades now. It's a branch on a family tree that includes stand-up comedy, sketch, slam poetry, rap, and hip-hop.

Sunday What is to be lost In Bruce Graham's textured drama The Outgoing Tide, a flinty patriarch comes up with a plan to deal with his diminishing capacities, laid out to his reluctant wife and beleaguered son at the family's cabin on the Chesapeake. The Philadelphia Theatre Company production goes on at 3 p.m. Sunday at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre, Broad and Lombard Streets, and continues with shows at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, 1 and 7 p.m. Wednesday, 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. next Sunday.

A leaner version of the Philadelphia Book Festival returns Monday to the Free Library of Philadelphia for a six-day program featuring readings and discussions by seven authors, including the poet laureate of the United States, Philip Levine, and the first-ever poet laureate of Philadelphia, Sonia Sanchez; a rich array of children's events and performances; and a tour through the dark fictional landscape created by one of Philadelphia's forgotten literary...

Mayor Nutter has added another feather to Philadelphia's cultural cap by naming Sonia Sanchez its first poet laureate. Nutter announced the idea of creating a poet laureate program in May, during a Sanchez reading at City Hall. A committee that included novelist Lorene Cary recommended Sanchez, a natural choice. A teacher, mentor, activist, and humanitarian as well as a poet, Sanchez, 77, has long been regarded as the city's unofficial poet laureate. But now the job is truly hers.

HAIKU: A leading lady in poetry embraces Philadelphia Sonia Sanchez, a retired Temple University professor and an award-winning poet, educator and activist, will be Philadelphia's first poet laureate. Mayor Nutter was to make the announcement this morning in City Hall. "I considered it quite the honor," Sanchez, 77, told the Daily News yesterday. "I accepted this post because you really want to remind the city, the country and the world that poetry reminds us of the best in ourselves and others . . . it brings us to that avenue where conversation will be discussed.