McCrory’s mean joke, a poet laureate who’s barely a poet
Who the hell is Valerie Macon?
That’s what poets in North Carolina are asking this week after Gov. Pat McCrory bypassed the established process for choosing the state’s poet laureate and appointed the unknown, inexperienced Macon to the post for the next two years.
Typically, the North Carolina Arts Council handles the selection of a new laureate. They solicit nominations, convene a selection committee to review the poets against the position’s guidelines and recommend a finalist to the Governor, who announces the new laureate.
But McCrory couldn’t bother with that. Ignoring the NCAC’s process, he simply issued a Friday-afternoon press release that Macon was in. The governor didn't even bother to thank outgoing laureate Joseph Bathanti, who has done exemplary education and outreach work around the state since 2012.
Well, at least McCrory didn’t slash Bathanti’s tires.
Ignoring standard procedure and professional courtesy is one thing. Macon’s profound lack of qualifications is another. Bathanti’s resume is typical for a laureate—more than 10 books, decades of literary involvement, major awards and a teaching position at Appalachian State University.Macon’s got none of those chops. She’s self-published two short poetry books. She studied business, not literature. She’s never taught. Her poetry outreach work amounts to zero. Judging from the collective social media shrug from the Tarheel poetry world, Macon’s not involved in any literary community. She’s a bureaucrat, commuting to her Department of Health and Human Services job from her Fuquay-Varina home—a hobbyist poet.
http://www.indyweek.com/artery/archives/2014/07/16/opinion-mccrorys-mean-joke-a-poet-laureate-whos-barely-a-poet
McCrory has got to be the pettiest human being alive.
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