Amy Paeth

Amy Paeth, a Bainbridge Island native, has won the Northeast Modern Language Association’s Annual Book Award.  Her book, The American Poet Laureate: A History of U.S. Poetry and the State, shows how the state has been the silent center of poetic production in the United States World War II. It is the first history of the national poetry office, the U.S. poet laureate, highlighting the careers of Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Frost, Gwendolyn Brooks, Robert Pinsky, Tracy K. Smith, Juan Felipe Herrera, and Joy Harjo at the nation’s Capitol. It is also a history of how these state poets participated in national arts programming during the Cold War.

Drawing on previously unexplored archival materials at the Library of Congress and materials at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Amy Paeth describes the interactions of federal bodies, including the Central Intelligence Agency, the State Department, and the National Endowment for the Arts, with literary organizations and with private patrons, including "Prozac heiress” Ruth Lilly.