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As times get worse, Silicon Valley turns to verse

Undaunted by an economic outlook that is anything but lyrical, Silicon Valley is looking for a poet laureate. He or she will be expected to not only write, but also work to make poetry more accessible to people in their everyday lives.
/ Source: The Associated Press

Undaunted by an economic outlook that is anything but lyrical, officials are looking for a poet laureate to sing Silicon Valley electric.

The idea of granting a little poetic license began before the economy took a nose-dive last fall. But the board decided to go ahead.

“It does feel like a very positive move,” said Liz Kniss, president of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors. “We said we should have something that really does act as a counterpoint to this financial crisis that we're in.”

Officials are looking to get their words' worth out of the new laureate. They're paying a small $4,000 stipend for the two-year post, using money from hotel taxes that already is dedicated to supporting the arts.

Candidates, who must be published poets and five-year residents of the county, will be expected to do more than come up with the write stuff. One of the new laureate's duties will be to undertake a project to make poetry more available and accessible to people in their everyday lives.

High-tech and high art might not seem like natural soul mates, but Kniss said a surprising number of people cherish a well-turned phrase.

“I was really stunned to find that every one of my colleagues (on the board) had a favorite poem that they could literally recite on the spot,” she said. “Almost everyone remembers a poem from their childhood if not more recently.”

A binary bard sounds like a good plan to former U.S. poet laureate Robert Hass.

“Having poets around who are thinking about language, especially in places that have to do with communication and also with invention is a terrific idea,” said Hass, who teaches at the University of California, Berkeley. “Poets are always trying to invent in all forms of language.”

As national poet laureate, Hass, who won a Pulitzer Prize for poetry last year, said his job included giving readings, curating a literary series, lecturing and making a fair amount of small talk “around cubes of cheddar cheese on toothpicks afterward.”

Essentially, he served as “a kind of spokesman for American writing and for world writing and the imagination — for literacy.”

Silicon Valley's new poet laureate is expected to take up duties this spring, looking for rhyme and reason in an uncertain world.

Although things aren't as bad here as in the dot-com bust of the early 2000s, a number of companies have announced job cuts including Intel Inc., Sun Microsystems Inc., and Hewlett-Packard Co., and San Jose city officials are drawing up plans to cope with projected deficits.

Kniss looks at the chaotic economy as having elements of “the best of times and the worst of times,” quoting the ever-lyrical Charles Dickens, "but I'm absolutely delighted that we've gone ahead with this."