Upon becoming the nation’s next poet laureate today, Charles Wright, the author of 24 books of verse noted that poetry “isn’t on a respirator” but it does “lack ambition.”

Wright elaborated that there is enough “ambition for certain grants and prizes” but what he meant was something different, something more historic and traditional about poetry.

Wright invoked two poets who I identify with as a poet/law professor/public interest lawyer— Wallace Stevens, the lawyer-poet, and William Carlos Williams, the medical doctor-poet. Wright noted that they both were trying to change “the way poetry is looked at.”

I especially identify with Williams because he wrote poetry and short stories all of his life but also maintained a medical practice. Two of his poems, “the red wheelbarrow” and “This is Just to Say” (“the plums” poem) are two of the most famous and studied in the history of American literature. Williams (and many others including James Weldon Johnson) acts as my inspiration every day as I try to write and also seek equal justice for people who I encounter in my legal work. Twenty years ago, I thought one of these careers was going to have to go, but then soon realized that if I did that, it would be a grave mistake. They are basically one and the same.

But considering all of that, I think I have an idea of what Wright was trying to say though it is hard to see how some of it can be fixed. Wright obviously believes poetry is about ordinary people and his own work attests to this. But, the way the poetry industry works now is, poets want to be able to have a career as a poet and so they must conform to certain powers within the nation’s poetry structure. Awards and grants are a part of that and these financial injections and professional elevations can sustain a poet just like a nice cushy, tenured job teaching poetry can as well.

It also can be argued that poets who want to exist in the world of poetry and literature know this, so they seek it out, without regard sometimes for their own aesthetic standards. They will conform and play the game and try to make it as a poet. Yet, it also can be argued that poetry (art) is not well supported in the U.S. so something has to be done to help poets write and eat and have a place to live and work. The prizes and awards are part of something necessary.

Wright, I am sure, knows that most poets are not worried about grants and are the real reason poetry is breathing easy. They write everyday. They attend workshops and teach workshops that no one will ever hear about except those who attend. They publish their work in unknown literary publications. They buy and subscribe to unknown literary publications. They run small presses that put out books of poetry. They support other poets. They might teach high school, or community college classes; they might work at a museum as an assistant, or at a non-profit that helps artists of all types. They aren’t that concerned with grants and awards. They are ambitious and will be for their natural poetry lives.