Robert Polito, the director of the creative writing program at The New School since 1992, has been named the new president of the Poetry Foundation, based in Chicago.
Mr. Polito will begin his tenure on July 8. The organization’s inaugural president, John Barr, who caused occasional ripples in the poetry world, is set to retire but will stay on until July and then help with the transition.
Mr. Polito is a poet, critic and author of several books, including “Savage Art,†a biography of the crime writer Jim Thompson that won a National Book Critics Circle Award in 1995.
The foundation, which publishes the century-old Poetry magazine, was created after Ruth Lilly, an heir to the Eli Lilly pharmaceutical fortune, shocked the arts community and gave the magazine $00 million in 2002. (The gift, given in stock, has since come to be valued at nearly $200 million, according to the foundation.)
Poetry also will have a new name at the top soon. Christian Wiman, editor of the magazine since 2003, recently announced he will leave the position in June.
