I just went to check whether the poet William Carlos Williams has appeared on a United States postage stamp. He hasn’t. But it turns out that the Postal Service just announced a 2012 set of stamps honoring American poets: Elizabeth Bishop, Joseph Brodsky, Gwendolyn Brooks, E.E. Cummings, Robert Hayden, Denise Levertov, Sylvia Plath, Theodore Roethke, Wallace Stevens, and Williams. Welcome news. The literary critic Hugh Kenner, in a documentary about Williams: “A great poet is one who makes a difference to the art of poetry. I think it’s as simple as that. And he made more difference to American poetry than anyone other than Walt Whitman.”
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Rutherford native and author of Paterson poem commemorated in stamp (Northjersey.com)
comments: 4
It is sad yet telling that as the Post Office goes into serious decline it releases some of its greatest stamps ever. I have been so impressed with the stamp selections of the past year, from Boy Scouts to Jazz to Richard Wright to American Designers. And now the poets in 2012!
I bought many sheets of the American Designer stamps, so the USPS better keep going. I don’t think it will really go under, but it’s odd indeed when such a fixture of everyday life is no longer certain.
I forgot to add the lovely stamp of Puerto Rico's greatest poet, Julia de Burgos. I bought a sheet of those. And I hear that a new release in 2012 will consist of various collages by Romare Bearden! What wonderful person is making these decisions? They deserve their own stamp!
That’s a good question. There must be some culturally astute (I almost said “hip”) design people in the USPS.
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