The Poet Laureate of New Jersey position was created on October 4, 1999. Gerald Stern was appointed first New Jersey poet laureate on April 17, 2000, by Governor Christie Whitman. The second poet laureate, Amiri Baraka was dismissed after reading his poem "Somebody Blew Up America" at the September 2002 Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. Some thought the poem was antisemitic and that it supported the theory the that the United States knew about the 9/11 attacks in advance (see 9/11 advance-knowledge debate), based on the following lines:
Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed
Who told 4,000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers
To stay home that day
Why did Sharon stay away?
Governor Jim McGreevey asked for Baraka to resign, but he refused, stating that the poem was intended to be critical of Israel, racism, and militarism, not of Jews. Because there was no way to legally remove a poet laureate, on October 17, 2002, a bill was introduced to the New Jersey Senate that eliminated the position entirely only three years after it was created.
Famous quotes containing the words poet and/or jersey:
“Old Drayton thought that a man that lived here, and would be a poet ... should have in him certain “brave, translunary things,” and a “fine madness” should possess his brain. Certainly it were as well, that he might be up to the occasion.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“vanished into nowhere Zen New Jersey leaving a trail of ambiguous
picture postcards of Atlantic City Hall,”
—Allen Ginsberg (b. 1926)