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self-portrait from dethlefsen’s website (click to visit)

Perhaps Bruce Dethlefsen is bitter about getting laid off just a few months into his new job. He’s soon losing his post as Wisconsin’s poet laureate: Gov. Scott Walker has signaled to the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission that he plans to not renew Gov. Tommy Thompson’s 1995 executive order creating the position, according to the Bloomberg news service.

Dethlefsen, you see, has written a haiku about the protests in Madison, which, generally, have been somewhat critical of Walker and his proposal to limit collective bargaining for public employees:

“Fifty-thousand strong / we stand up and scream to save / sitting down to talk”

bruce dethlefsen

The poet only receives $2,000 a year from the state Arts Board (plus gas reimbursement) to travel around the state teaching and promoting his fine art. The public dollars are gone – the Arts Board has said it probably can’t afford them with other cuts proposed under Walker’s 2011-13 state budget – but private ones could replace them.

The Poet Laureate Commission is looking for a non-profit to serve as a parent organization. Dethlefsen tells the news service he plans to remain the state laureate “until someone stops me.” Appointed by former Gov. Jim Doyle, he just started at the beginning of this year. The laureates serve two-year terms.

This appears to mean we’ll never learn who Walker’s favorite Wisconsin poet is.

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