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America's first Poet Laureate Joseph Auslander served from 1937-1941Mr. Auslanderwas born in 1897 and died in 1965. Auslander, was born in Philadelphia and graduated Harvard College.There may have been better Poets Laureate, but Mr. Auslander was the first one, appointed in 1937.Actually our first Poet Laureate was originally called the first Consultant in Poetry, and with his appointment there were no term limits which explains how he happened to serve for four years. Mr. Auslander was noted for his war poems.
The works of Mr. Auslander included the following:
Sunrise Trumpets. New York: Harper, 1924
Cyclops' Eye. New York: Harper, 1926
The Winged Horse (with Frank Ernest Hill). New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company, 1927.
The Winged Horse Anthology (with Frank Ernest Hill).New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company, 1939.
The Unconquerables: Salutes to the Undying Spirit of the Nazi-Occupied Countries. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1943.
Perhaps Mr. Auslander's best-known work is entitled "The Unconquerables" (1943), a collection of poems addressed to the German-occupied countries of Europe.
Here is an example of the work of our first Poet Laureate:
To My DespoilerbyJoseph Auslander
Yes, you have taken everything from me: Beauty and love and all the measureless Impatience of proud April; even our sea Shouting under the gulls; all loveliness Of form and sound and colour; all that we Had touched; the curve of things we used to press Glowing against our senses; mystery And movement. . . everything taken. . . taken. . . Yes, Even the little brave irrelevancies Like brooding water, dripping water-cress, The cool dark noise of cropping; cruising bees On hot gold expeditions--even these You took from me--Oh spare me your caress, Leave me at least my own stark loneliness!
Tex Norman is a Child Welfare worker, who likes to write. He sees ugliness every day. Writing is how he tries to think through the difficulties of life.
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America's first Poet Laureate 