The legislature's bill was signed into law by Governor Christine Todd Whitman. It was expected that the award's recipient—the poet laureate—would "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." In this respect, New Jersey's poet laureate was similar to the position of Poet laureate in other American states and in several other countries. However, a public reading in September 2002 by the state's second laureate, Newark-based poet Amiri Baraka, of his poem "Somebody Blew Up America" was met with harsh criticism by the public and news media. The poem, which explores the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, was criticized by many as violent, incendiary, and anti-Semitic, and the ensuing controversy ignited a political firestorm. Because of Baraka's defiant refusals to apologize or resign as poet laureate and since there was no mechanism in the law to remove him, the position was abolished by the legislature and Governor James E. McGreevey in 2003.