Poet laureate is the kind of position every politician loves to support. It's right up there with naming an official state doughnut or declaring corn muffins the official state muffin. (Massachusetts is actually behind the corn muffin stance.) It makes the politician look like a lover of the arts, a lover of literacy, a lover of old-timey values, and they get to look like they're committed to a cause. In this case, committed to the cause of poetry.
Which brings us to Ohio. The state senate unanimously passed a resolution to create the position of state poet laureate, a position that 44 other states have long gotten around to naming. For a state that produced such famed poets as Langston Hughes, Nikki Giovanni, and Paul Lawrence Dunbar, it appears an oversight made right.
Under the resolution passed, the governor will select someone to the position from a list of recommendations. Once chosen, the poet laureate will remain in office for four years and be required to hold four public readings. (It's a very intense work load.)
In case you're wondering, the five remaining states without a poet laureate are not some podunk like North Dakota or Nebraska. They are Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania--the last two of whom which once had poet laureates, and then later abolished the position.
Which is why we can safely announce New Jersey and Pennsylvania hate poetry.
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