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The King of Queens? No, But Poet Laureate Will Do: It's Official; The Borough's New Voice Is Droll, Deadpan and Slightly Obsessed with Mom
By GARY SHAPIRO
FORWARD STAFF
His six-foot-two frame, slightly stooped shoulders and perpetually dazed, wide-set eyes give the impression of a graduate student who has stayed up all night typing a term paper. He speaks in a memorably deadpan monotone (think of a tape recorder running low on batteries) and an accent reminiscent of Alan Sherman ("Hello mudda, hello fadda").
In short, not everyone's idea of a public official. But the office of Second Poet Laureate of Queens is by committee appointment, not election, and at a March 12 ceremony at Queens Borough Hall in Flushing, N.Y., Hal Sirowitz, 52, began his three-year term. Queens Borough President Claire Shulman wrote that he captures "the borough's inflections" and the "gestalt of Queens."
Best known for his 1996 collection, "Mother Said: Poems," Mr. Sirowitz has been called "the mother poet," an obsession that has led one writer to diagnose him an "Oedipus wreck." "Some people think I must talk about my mother all day," Mr. Sirowitz said in an interview with the Forward. "One person said she liked my poetry but said, `Don't you think you should leave the house?' I told her I hadn't lived at home for 20 years."
A poet defying the conventional poetry world by being accessible ("I don't hide behind big words," he said), Mr. Sirowitz has tasted an offbeat kind of fame before. In Norway he is the best-selling poet...