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Poetry on Great Days

March 21

At Barack Obama’s historic inauguration yesterday morning, the new President followed a grand yet rarely used tradition – inviting friend and poet Elizabeth Alexander to read a piece she had composed specifically for the occasion.

Alexander is a woman aligned closely with the history of slavery, the civil rights movement and feminism – she teaches African American studies at Yale and was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for her collection American Sublime. Obama, who was seen recently carrying of a book of Derek Walcott’s poetry, perhaps chose her in order to quietly voice just what his inauguration means to multi-racial America. His only explicit reference to being the first black President in his speech was a statement that less than sixty years ago, his own father would have been turned away from local restaurant simply by virtue of the colour of his skin.

Alexander is only the fourth poet to read at a presidential inauguration, Robert Frost read for John F. Kennedy in 1961, and Miller Williams and Maya Angelou for Bill Clinton in the 1990s. George Bush, showing his typical appreciation for the arts, declined to have a poet read for him (perhaps he doesn’t enjoy it unless it rhymes).

Poetry is old praise. All great moments in history – war, peace, survival, protest and unification – are accompanied by volumes and volumes of verse. Nothing glorifies or reminds in quite the same way. Presidential speeches frequently rely heavily on poetry for lyrical effect. Yet why have only four inaugurations seen fit to include it? Bush evidently thought it had gone out of style, or perhaps wouldn’t sit well with the everyman. More and more, poetry seems to be becoming a niche passion. Responses to Alexander’s ‘Praise Song for the Day’ were mixed – some felt it was beautiful, inspiring, eloquent, yet others thought it failed to hit the right register. And just how many of the 2 million people gathered at Washington really identified with the meaning of the words and what they meant? Some fodder for your mind this afternoon – what is the role of poetry on these grand days?


 

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