Gov. Wants to Fire Poet

Gov. James E. McGreevey will seek the power to fire the state's poet laureate who has refused repeated calls to resign after activists labeled a Sept. 11 memorial poem anti-Semitic.

Legislation giving the governor that authority is being prepared and could be introduced as early as Monday, McGreevey said Sunday.

"This will be able to include the present poet laureate," McGreevey told The Associated Press.

State arts groups have recommended ending Amiri Baraka's two-year term, which comes with a $10,000 stipend.

Under McGreevey's proposal, the state Senate would have to clear nominations for poet laureate, and whoever landed the post would need the governor's approval.

Baraka needed no such endorsement after he was chosen by the New Jersey Council for the Humanities and the state Council on the Arts. His title and grant money cannot be rescinded, and only he can end his term.

McGreevey said elected officials must have some say in choosing poet laureates and means for holding them accountable.

"It's not the governor's poet laureate," McGreevey said. "It's the state's poet laureate."

Nationally recognized for poems and plays criticizing racism and perceived social injustice, Baraka was appointed poet laureate in July. The poet said he warned the governor at the outset that his commentary might not sit well with everyone.

"I told the governor when he appointed me, 'You're going to catch hell for this,"' the poet said Sunday. "He said 'I don't care."'

McGreevey said he did not appoint Baraka to the post, but only announced the poet's selection.

Last month, McGreevey demanded Baraka's resignation after the poet read "Somebody Blew Up America" at an August festival.

"Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed," says the poem, written in October 2001. "Who told 4,000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers to stay home that day? Why did Sharon stay away?"

Groups including the Anti-Defamation League called those lines offensive and anti-Semitic. The governor sought to fire Baraka directly, but the attorney general ruled he did not have the authority.

Democratic Senate President Richard J. Codey, D-Essex, and Sen. Peter Inverso, R-Mercer, have scheduled Monday news conferences to discuss the poet laureate.

Baraka has defended the poem, saying it "aims to probe and disturb, but there is not any evidence of anti-Semitism." He refuses to step down, calling attempts to dismiss him the result of a possible war with Iraq.

According to several published biographies, Baraka, who turns 68 on Monday, began his career as a poet and publisher after leaving the Air Force in 1957. He founded Totem Press and first published works by Beat poets Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. Baraka changed his name from Everett LeRoi Jones following the death of Malcolm X.

In 1961, he published his own volume of poetry, "Preface to a Twenty-Volume Suicide Note." Several of his plays have been produced and most of his work has focused on such social issues as police brutality and racism.

A political activist, Baraka founded a national organization, the Congress of African People, and community groups in Newark. He also helped organize the 1972 National Black Political Convention.

Baraka's literary works have been honored by the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. He has won the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Rockefeller Foundation Award for Drama.

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Author: NBC10/AP