Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom The British Poet Laureate is an honorary position appointed by the monarch of the United Kingdom on the advice of the Prime Minister. The role does not entail any specific duties, but there is an expectation that the holder will write verse for significant national occasions. The origins of the laureateship date back to 1616 when a pension was provided to Ben Jonson, but the first official holder of the position was John Dryden, appointed in 1668 by Charles II. On the death of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who held the post between November 1850
Poet Laureate of New Jersey two years in which the person appointed would be required to "engage in activities to promote and encourage poetry within the State and shall give no fewer than two public readings within the State each year." Poet Gerald Stern (born 1925), from Lawrenceville, New Jersey, was appointed as the state's first poet laureate by Governor Christine Todd Whitman on April 17, 2000. At the time of his appointment, Stern had been the author of twelve books of poetry and won the National Book Award for his 1998 collection "This Time: New and Selected Poems". Stern had been a finalist for