"What is the role of the writer?"

Charles Simic has been named the new Poet Laureate of the U.S., or PLOTUS, as Simic's predecessor, Donald Hall, used to call himself.

The actual title is even longer: Poet Laureate Consultant to the U.S. Library of Congress. No great acronym in that.

Simic has always been outspoken, especially when it comes to war. In October 2002, he signed on to a display ad in the New York Times opposing Pres. Bush's plan to invade Iraq. If only POTUS had listened...

According to the NYT:

Born in Belgrade in 1938, he knew war as a child. “Germans and the Allies took turns dropping bombs on my head while I played with my collection of lead soldiers on the floor,” Simic told The Cortland Review. “I would go boom, boom, and then they would go boom, boom.”

“I’m sort of the product of history; Hitler and Stalin were my travel agents.”

War and morality are subjects Simic has spoken about often, and according to a 2005 interview in The Paris Review, they are always on his mind: “The use of murder to improve the world, for instance, is popular in American intellectual circles as if there had never been any historical precedents. I think about these things all the time.”

He bridles at the suggestion that writers should march in lockstep on this issue -- or any other. When asked if his personal beliefs would enter into his very public role as PLOTUS, he replied:

“That reminds me so much of the way the young Communists in the days of Stalin at big party congresses would ask, ‘What is the role of the writer?’ But isn’t that question -- “What is the role of the writer?” -- one we are still asking? Do we know the answer yet?"

We don't know the answer yet. Each of us need to keep asking the question.