In late January, the Poetry Foundation announced that Robert Polito would its next president. His tenure will begin in July of this year. He is replacing John Barr, the Foundation’s inaugural president, who announced his retirement last year and will help make sure Polito’s transition is successful.

“Robert Polito is the right leader for the next chapter of the Poetry Foundation,” said John Kenney, board chairman at the Poetry Foundation. “…he will bring to the job broad experience and a creative energy that will move the organization in new directions while remaining true to the legacy of Poetry magazine and the mission of the Poetry Foundation.”

Polito, a poet and nonfiction writer, professor, and, since 1992, director of Creative Writing at The New School, is a past recipient of a National Book Critics Circle Award, fellowships from the Guggenheim and Ingram Merrill foundations. He is also a contributing editor to BOMB and the Boston Review. His books include the collections of poetry, Hollywood & God and Doubles, and A Reader’s Guide to James Merrill’s The Changing Light at Sandover and Savage Art: A Biography of Jim Thompson.

“This is a fascinating moment for us, as over the past few decades the poetry world in America has smartly recreated itself around clusters of vibrant local cultures, each with its own magazines, presses, websites, blogs, and reading series,” said Polito. “…poetry—and what I’ve learned through reading and writing it—is at the center of everything I do.”

“[He] is one of the most talented and gifted thinkers about poetry that I know,” said poet Frank Bidart, a recipient of Yale University’s Bollingen Prize and the Wallace Stevens Award and a Fellow of the American Academy for the Arts and Sciences.

More information: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2013/01/meet-the-poetry-foundations-new-president-robert-polito/