Philip Levine named U.S. poet laureate | Jewish Journal

Philip Levine, a Pulitzer Prize winner in 1995, has been named the 18th poet laureate of the United States.

The appointment of Levine, who at 83 is one of the oldest poet laureates, was announced Wednesday by Librarian of Congress James Billington.

Levine, of Fresno, Calif., is the author of 20 collections of poems, including “The Simple Truth,” for which he won the Pulitzer Prize.

“Philip Levine is one of America’s great narrative poets,” Billington said. “His plainspoken lyricism has, for half a century, championed the art of telling ‘The Simple Truth’—about working in a Detroit auto factory, as he has, and about the hard work we do to make sense of our lives.” Read more »