Set to Verse: Donald Hall Is New Poet Laureate

"She would have been pleased for me," Hall said, though she "would definitely have joked about it," too. But Kenyon's own work has been growing in popularity, he added -- so if she'd lived, "it might have been her having it rather than me."

Hall will begin his official duties in the fall. He will be a featured speaker at the National Book Festival on Sept. 30 and will read from his work in October to kick off the Library of Congress's annual poetry and literature series. He plans to continue living in New Hampshire, traveling to Washington as necessary.

He has done this commuting thing before: In the early 1990s, he served on the National Council on the Arts, an advisory body to the National Endowment for the Arts. It was a time of bitter political controversy over NEA grants to art projects, especially those involving homosexual themes, and Hall argued strongly that the NEA should not act from the "fear of bigots."

Former poet laureate Robert Pinsky yesterday praised Hall's "record of being very courageous in talking about freedom of expression." Pinsky called Hall's appointment "appropriate" at a time when he believes threats to that freedom continue.

Asked what he will do to advocate for poetry during his roughly two-year term, Hall said he hadn't figured that out yet, despite his friend Rector having forwarded a helpful list of more than 80 suggestions. ("It made me tired," Hall joked.) One of his own initial thoughts, which he called a "wild idea," was to help start a poetry channel on one of the satellite radio networks.

He expressed admiration for the initiative of his immediate predecessor, Kooser, who began sending out short works by contemporary American poets once a week for free publication in newspapers. (Kooser said he plans to continue this effort after leaving office.) Hall also praised Pinsky's Favorite Poem Project, which recorded ordinary Americans reading a chosen poem and led to significant television exposure and the publication of several successful anthologies.

Hall spent some of the weekend before his appointment was announced, as is his habit, following the Boston Red Sox on television. He is a serious baseball fan who has written a good deal about the game, which he once described as "small, exact, formal, whole, pleasing and separate from ordinary reality."

Like poetry?

"Yes, yes," the poet laureate said, laughing. "Though I do think poetry has some relationship to reality."