Melville House Books

The Nevada Arts Council decided it was time to “put a real poet in the honorary, unpaid post” of Nevada Poet Laureate. However, as a Los Angeles Times story by Sam Howe Verhovek reports, there was one little glitch: the man who has held the job for the last 37 years doesn’t want to give it up. Songwriter Norman Kaye admits he has never published a poem —”or a ‘quote, poem, unquote,’ as he prefers to call it.” But the Arts Council’s plan to ease him out into an “emeritus” position has him riled. “I don’t want to be the emeritus,” he tells Verhovek. “Emeritus sounds like you’re practically a dead guy. Do I look dead to you?”

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.