Poet laureate

Poet laureate, royal appointment held by a British poet who writes poems for state occasions. The title is now largely honorific. John Dryden first had the title in 1668, but the custom started when Ben Jonson received a royal pension in 1616. In the U.S., the poet laureates have been appointed by the Library of Congress. Robert Penn Warren was the first (1986), Richard Wilbur (1987), Howard Nemerov (1988), Mark Strand (1990), and Joseph Brodsky (1991), who is the first foreign-born poet to be named laureate.