NYT: Outspoken New Englander Is New Poet Laureate ("I will speak up")

Outspoken New Englander Is New Poet Laureate
By DINITIA SMITH
Published: June 14, 2006

The head of the Library of Congress is to name Donald Hall, a writer whose deceptively simple language builds on images of the New England landscape, as the nation's 14th poet laureate today.

Mr. Hall, a poet in the distinctive American tradition of Robert Frost, has also been a harsh critic of the religious right's influence on government arts policy. And as a member of the advisory council of the National Endowment for the Arts during the administration of George H. W. Bush, he referred to those he thought were interfering with arts grants as "bullies and art bashers."...

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The announcement of Mr. Hall's appointment is to be made by James H. Billington, the Librarian of Congress. Mr. Billington said that he chose Mr. Hall because of "the sustained quality of his poetry, the reach and variety of things he talks about." Like (Ted) Kooser, Mr. Billington said, Mr. Hall "evokes a sense of place."...

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Mr. Hall, 77, lives in a white clapboard farmhouse in Wilmot, N.H., that has been in his family for generations. He said in a telephone interview that he didn't see the poet laureateship as a bully pulpit. "But it's a pulpit anyway," he said. "If I see First Amendment violations, I will speak up."...

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Robert Pinsky, who was poet laureate from 1997 to 2000, said he welcomed Mr. Hall's appointment, especially in light of his previous outspokenness about politics and the arts. "There is something nicely symbolic, and maybe surprising," Mr. Pinsky said, "that they have selected someone who has taken a stand for freedom."...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/14/books/14poet.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

is heinous -- and represents the kind of mind control they want to exert on everyone.