Now who will write poems honoring Vanessa Hayden?

Renowned poet and WNBA superfan Stephen Burt is leaving the Twin Cities. The chairman of the Macalester College English department has accepted a position with his undergraduate alma mater Harvard University. The prolific poet and essayist's work has appeared in The Believer, the London Review of Books, and Modern American Poetry. He's also found time to publish three volumes of poetry (the most recent being Shot Clocks: Poems for the WNBA) since arriving at Macalester in 2000. Not to mention the amusing blog that he co-authors with his wife.

Burt anticipates that the scholarly demands of achieving tenure at Harvard will force him to temporarily scale back his other writing pursuits. "It means that some of the sports writing and music writing that I'd like to do in the next two years will not be done in the next two years," he says.

As for hoops fandom, Burt says that his allegiances have always been split between the Lynx and the Connecticut Sun. "As long as they don't move the Lynx to the Eastern Conference there won't be much of a problem," he says, noting that his wife is originally from Connecticut. "We've always supported the Lynx and the Sun."

For a recent example of Burt's work, see "Dulles Access Road," published last week by Slate. He will be reading with fellow poets Kathleen Heideman and Bryan Thao Worra on April 10 at Black Dog Coffeehouse, and will begin teaching at Harvard in the fall.