In a ceremony held March 10th, Governor Tom Vilsack named Marvin Bell, Flannery O’Connor professor of Letters at the University of Iowa, as Iowa’s State Poet Laureate. Professor Bell’s honor came during the celebration of Humanities Iowa Day 2000, which was held in the Quad Cities as part of the Quad City Arts - Poet Project and he made the following remarks ...

Iowa's Poet Laureate Marvin Bell (left) and Humanities Iowa Board President Fred Waldstein.

I am honored that you would allow me to represent Iowa poets. I am certainly an Iowan. I first came here 40 years ago. And all poetry is local. Art comes out of a life and where that life is lived. But poetry transcends boundaries and borders, including state borders. Whoever accepts this position, therefore, must represent all poets, poets everywhere, poets writing every-which-way.

Like any writer, especially any poet, I can’t make promises about what I will write next. I am fortunate to have written poems that sound to some ears like those of an Iowan. But I have also written many poems that sound to others as if they were written by a Martian. In this respect, I can stand for many. I would like to think that Iowa is hospitable to all kinds of people and all kinds of writers, including extra-terrestrials, if we have any. Let me say that there have been times when I was sure that Iowa had many ETs because I have taught for over thirty-five years in the University of IowaWriters’ Workshop and some of my wonderful students seem to me to have come from the far reaches of the solar system.

All art is about what life feels like. The arts are the way in which we express what life feels like. We have no other way to fully express our feelings. Because emotions are not words, it takes a complex of maneuvers in language even to come close to the depth and complexity of our beings. Poetry at its very best uses words to say more than words can say.

Humanities Iowa Executive Director
Chris Rossi (left) and Marvin Bell.

Iowa is gifted with many accomplished poets. One suspects that no state has more poets per capita. I would like Iowans to understand this. I would like to see a copy of Michael Carey’s fine anthology of Iowa poets from Loess Hills Press, Voices on the Landscape, prominently displayed in every high school library in the State.

Some of my friends on the East Coast still think Iowa is really Ohio, and others think I live in a state famous for potatoes. They know we’re out here somewhere, but they are not positive where, and they would be surprised to find out how many accomplished writers have lived in Iowa and how many still do. When I ask them which president, during a dark period in his term, said, "What this country needs is a good poem," and give them four choices–Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, and Jimmy Carter–they always get it wrong. As Iowans, we can’t keep some people from taking us for granted, but we should be doing ourselves a disservice were we ever to take ourselves for granted. In this respect, the naming of a Poet Laureate is a timely act of self-respect.

Marvin Bell (left), National Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky (center) and Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack.

Although poetry can be an occasion for conversation, talk about poetry is not poetry. Therefore, I will end my remarks with a short poem. This one is called, "White Clover." Iowans know that the clover blossoms on their neighborhood lawns because it was planted there for the cows when the neighborhoods were farms. I wrote this poem nearly two decades ago. It appeared in a book with an unusually long title that may now seem revealing. The title was, Drawn by Stones, by Earth, by Things that Have Been in the Fire. Perhaps you can tell from that lengthy title that I like ideas to have a little dirt on their shoes. To me, that’s part of being an Iowan.