Stanley Plumly has been named Poet Laureate of the state of Maryland, reports the Associated Press. Plumly’s book Old Heart (reviewed here by Mike McDonough) was nominated for the National Book Award in 2007, but lost to this Robert Hass book.

Plumly, author of nine books of poetry, has served as a distinguished professor at the University of Maryland since 1998. Over the years, his work has been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The Paris Review and American Poetry Review.