Suzanne Lummis, THE NEW YORKER and the likely impact in Los Angeles literary circles.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/03/didnt-get-nunnery

Let's look at this--a win for Suzanne Lummis and her vision of "craft-conscious poetry" and a win for West Coast literary poets who thought they'd never be accepted in the august pages of THE NEW YORKER--on several levels a la INCEPTION:

1. Suzanne will have a boost in the number of potential future students.

2. She'll also have several peers (or those who imagine themselves as peers) who will likely show adoring faces to her while harboring secret "why did SHE get in and I didn't" thoughts.

3. Unfortunately, it's a victory for those in Los Angeles who prefer all poetry emerging from the city to be rather homogenized in terms of notions of quality (the only exception being the welcome election of Luis Rodriguez as the city's Poet Laureate).

4. It's the final, fatal stake through the heart for the more unruly, DIY, coffeehouse non-slam community which used to exist side-by-side with the more Aspirational folks.  And the arrogant, destructive behavior of some of our community's "greatest" poets towards perceived inferiors will increase--along with the timid, for-career's-sake silence that enables it.

5. With THE NEW YORKER achievement and the new book, let's see if Suzanne can use her upsurge to leverage the revival of both the Newer Poets series and the long-dormant Los Angeles Poetry Festival.

Kate Gale's brutal honesty about how poetry business gets done in SoCal.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kate-gale/la-poet-laureate_b_2259587.html

Excerpt from the above article by Ms. Gale with the "brutal honesty" portions highlighted by me:

What seemed exciting, quickly became daunting. Los Angeles is home to many talented poets. There's a difference between winning a prize and receiving a job as a city's laureate. I'm on the Claremont Graduate University Kingsley Tufts Committee and there, we are looking for a winning book. The poet doesn't have to be ready for civic engagements and many levels of education and entertainment over two years. We look for a book that blows our socks off by an author with a significant body of work.
Here we had to consider not only the poet's body of work, but also his or her willingness to work for poetry over a two year period, a job that involves getting along with people. That's not an easy task for many poets who are often wildly uncensored or tragically introverted while pathologically paranoid, and although unwilling to work with others, they're convinced that not being invited to the party is everyone else's fault.
For a poet's work to matter, it has to resonate for a large group of people and be part of the cultural conversation. In other words, they've written something we can all argue about. Working at a level of excellence, being part of the critical dialogue and being someone who has given back to the literary community, that's what great poets do. And not just teaching. You get paid for teaching, and if you have tenure, you're paid well. I'm interested in people who mentor students, teach workshops, build writing programs, and give to cultural institutions that do the same. The city needs someone who writes at a level of excellence and has generosity of spirit. A dose of sanity wouldn't hurt either.

Ten possible future Los Angeles Poets Laureate

Eloise Klein Healy is the first Poet Laureate of Los Angeles.

And here are ten poets I'm guessing will either get the post (or be in the finals) in the years to come:
1. Suzanne Lummis
2. Carol Muske Dukes
3. Ron Koertge
4. Wanda Coleman
5. Amy Uyematsu
6. Brendan Constantine
7. Laurel Ann Bogen
8. Kate Gale
9. Cecilia Woloch
10. Ellyn Maybe

Dana Gioia 2012 vs. Dana Gioia circa 1999: re the L.A. Poet Laureate announcement.

http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2012/08/city_hall_announces_new_p.php

"It is wonderful to announce the new Poet Laureate position,” Poet Laureate Task Force Chair Dana Gioia said. “Los Angeles is the creative capital of the 21st century. Honoring poets and writers with this new public office is a fitting symbol for the power of the language and the imagination in our remarkable community."--from the article above

http://www.laweekly.com/1999-09-23/news/perhaps-these-are-not-poetic-times-at-all/

 "There is a huge renaissance of poetry activity in L.A.," Gioia told me over the phone from his home in Northern California, "but there are no governing standards. You can't have great literature without great standards, and no one wants to hear this, especially in L.A. There's a real mistaken impression that more art is better art, whereas in fact lots of bad poetry will deaden the appetite for good poetry."--from Brendan Bernhard's article "Perhaps These Are Not Poetic Times At All."