Obama Chooses Family Friend for Inaugural Poet

Obama Chooses Family Friend for Inaugural Poet


With much excitement, anticipation, toes crossed and breath held, we all wondered who might be selected as the poet for Barak Obama’s Inauguration. Would it be the new Library of Congress Poet Laureate, Kay Ryan, or her predecessor, Charles Simic? Would Maya Angelou be invited back for a repeat of “On the Pulse in the Morning”? Who has the fortitude to stand before 4-6 million shivering Americans and world guests to listen to the waxing and waning of “an occasional poem,” as they are so terribly named? Who even memorizes poems these days as Robert Frost did on a cold January in 1961? Is there such an American poet who has been vetted of appropriate metaphors and synecdoches for such an auspicious occasion?

Lyndon Baines didn’t even want to waste time with such triviality at his Inauguration. And Ike? Does anyone remember a poet honoring the great General? Well perhaps this is unfair, for who remembers the Benediction at any of the Inaugurals? Okay, can anyone out there (without Goggling) remember a line from any of the Presidential Inaugural speeches, with the exception of “Ask not….”? Lines do seem to fade once the party’s over, don’t they?

So we do have a Presidential Inaugural Poet, and she is Elizabeth Alexander of Yale University who has a remarkably fine list of honors and achievements, and you can find more about her by going to the www.npr.org site
and searching for her interview on Thursday, Dec.18. But I was just wondering, what do you think would be appropriate images or even lines of the Inaugural Poem?

Who could forget Maya Angelou’s?

Here, on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes, and into
Your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope --
Good morning.

A favorite image is seeing old man Frost reading from memory his closing lines of such solemnity:

Such as we were we gave ourselves outright
(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)
To the land vaguely realizing westward,
But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,
Such as she was, such as she would become.

Those lines do sound today a bit heavy handed with the piano key-iambic hitting just the right stresses. But heck, it was cold out, and we never got to hear the poem he wished to read, as he didn’t wear sunglasses for the intense snow glare that day. Anyone remember “Dedication”? It’s even more somber, if that’s possible. What is it about “the state of somberness” which gets these Inaugural poets bringing out the chariots, or cheerleaders? Sorry!

Now Miller Williams had it right, when he stepped up to the podium for Bill’s Second Inaugural. The photo of Bill sitting behind Miller who is reading is near priceless for “rapt attention of a poet reading a poem.” Here’s a stinger of Miller’s:

But where are we going to be, and why, and who?
The disenfranchised dead want to know.

Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. Let’s talk about the dead, a favorite for all poets.

And then there was James Dickey of all people, standing up for Jimmy Carter in 1977, choosing not to read a piece written for the occasion, but instead, pulling out a favorite of his, “The Strength of Fields,” with a rip roaring closing line of

My life belongs to the world. I will do what I can.

Now I am getting goose bumps; aren’t you? Okay, enough of this inaugural poetic torture. What would you like to read at the mike? Do you have an inaugural line? A title? Please submit your lines, images, metaphors and synecdoches, and I’ll try my best to cut and paste something that might catch the attention of the Academy of American Poets, for who knows what we might be able to create? We might be making inaugural poetic history here.

Please, though, no “hope springs eternal” lines. We’ve gotten the point on that one. Also, no blubbering. No whining. No chest puffing. Nothing too bellicose. Please, only one personification per poet, please. Think out of the sonnet box. Be grand, but not too grand. Be strong but not too strong. Be fresh, like Ezra Pound (see college modern poetry textbook) insisted. Perhaps a little pedestrian, but some nobility as well, for a Kennedy is bound to be in the audience. No “send forth” instructions. We’ve already done that. Keep it family style, too, as we don’t want any nipples showing that might need to be covered, after all, the meteorologists predict the temps will be in the low 20’s. Finally, and with some reservation as a poet who loves long historical poems, keep it to two pages, please. The public isn’t ready for a modified epic, at least not when teeth are chattering. So here’s your challenge. Send a few lines, titles, noble thoughts, and we’ll try to paste together a hit for the Yes We Can Team.







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