I applaud yesterday’s attempt to inject poetry into the inaugural proceedings. But the poem that Elizabeth Alexander composed and read was trite, the sort of thing that helps me understand why many people decide they hate poetry.
When I took a look at the written text of the poem, it appears it’s close to being a prose poem—not that there’s anything especially wrong with that. But these sorts of lines don’t cut it for me as poetry:
We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, “I need to see what’s on the other side; I know there’s something better down the road.”
Reminds me of nothing other than that old chicken joke.
But perhaps I’m being too harsh towards Ms. Alexander, because in general, inaugural poetry is a very tough gig. Maya Angelou hardly did better in 1993, for example. The tendency is to go all grandiose and portentous. And even the very great poet Robert Frost (although Alexander and Angelou may be wonderful people, very great poets they are not) was somewhat defeated by the assignment back in 1961.
Those of us old enough to remember JFK’s inaugural recall the image of the elderly white-haired poet, faltering in the bright light, and reading (actually, as it turns out, reciting from memory, although we didn’t know that at the time) his poem “The Gift Outright:”
But that was an older poem, not the one composed for the occasion, the draft of which he was unable to see clearly enough to read it. Here is the text of the new poem, called “Dedication,” that he had composed in honor of the day.
I think we can safely say it is not among Frost’s greatest works (I think the same of “The Gift Outright,” by the way—although the latter is at least a good poem and “Dedication” really is not). “Dedication” suffers from the usual problem of being too long to sustain the interest of most people who are listening to it rather than reading it, and it’s almost light verse—Frost in his semi-Ogden Nash mode. The poem’s unabashed message of America being a force of power for good in the world, however, seems both archaic and also somewhat neoconnish.
Here’s the story of how Frost came to be the first poet to read at an inauguration. More than a year and a half before the election of 1960, he was on record as predicting that JFK would win, even though Kennedy had not yet formally declared himself a candidate:
Among the questions asked [of Frost] was one concerning the alleged decline of New England, to which Frost responded: “The next President of the United States will be from Boston. Does that sound as if New England is decaying?” Pressed to name who Frost meant, he replied: “He’s a Puritan named Kennedy. The only Puritans left these days are the Roman Catholics. There. I guess I wear my politics on my sleeve.”
A correspondence sprung up between the two, initiated by JFK. Frost also repeated his prediction many times in subsequent public appearances. Kennedy reciprocated by quoting Frost’s lines from “Stopping By Woods On a Snowy Evening” (”But I have promises to keep/And miles to go before I sleep”) at the close of some of his speeches. Then after the election, Kennedy invited Frost to read at the inauguration, and even offered the poet some editorial suggestions:
Kennedy asked if Frost planned to recite a new poem. If not, could he recite “The Gift Outright,” a poem Frost has called “a history of the United States in a dozen [i.e., sixteen] lines of blank verse.” Kennedy also requested changing the phrase in the last line to “such as she will become” from “such as she would become.” Frost agreed.
Frost died in January of 1963, so he did not live to see JFK’s assassination, which cut off the President’s life while he should have had miles to go before he slept. But before that, the two men had a few more dealings with each other.
Frost called on Kennedy to present him with a framed copy of “Dedication” and to give him some more advice: “Poetry and power is the formula for another Augustan Age. Don’t be afraid of power.”
Hmmm. And Kennedy responded by adding in his own handwriting, at the foot of a typed thank-you letter he sent to Frost: “It’s poetry and power all the way!”
[NOTE: Speaking of poetry and power, Rudyard Kipling wrote perhaps the best poem composed for a ceremonial occasion of state. His effort, “Recessional” was written not for an inauguration, but rather for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee.
Kipling had cojones; instead of merely praising Victoria and the empire, the poem is a warning about the dangers of power when not tempered by humility, judgment, and genuine religious feeling. It features the haunting and repetitive refrain: “Lest we forget—lest we forget!”]
Previously a lifelong Democrat, born in New York and living in New England, surrounded by liberals on all sides, I've found myself slowly but surely 
January 21st, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Damn, with your sort of taste in poetry I’m not sure why you think “In Flanders Fields” isn’t all that great artistically. I mean, I suppose you must be a big fan of regular meter, but “In Flanders Fields” breaks the conventions just enough to be lyrical, in my book.
January 21st, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Neo, you are so right about this. I watched Alexander reading her poem and was immediately struck by her complete lack of ability to perform a dramatic reading (I thought that was part of being a poet). Then I read the text and realized that no one on earth could have rescued such a piece of trash.
January 21st, 2009 at 5:06 pm
I had the thought while struggling not to listen to her sheaf of wet garbage that it was ironic that the first cultural act of the Obama administration was to kill off poetry.
January 21st, 2009 at 5:17 pm
It was vomitous, stultifying, unedifying, hackneyed, assinine.
The crowning assininity of a vomitously stultifying parade of hackneyed unedifications. Shitty.
January 21st, 2009 at 5:22 pm
As I listened to that prosaic fluff yesterday, I also was drawn back to the memory of Robert Frost struggling with his manuscript and then going on to recite another poem. I didn’t know the story of how Frost and JFK were connected. Thanks for providing that.
January 21st, 2009 at 6:02 pm
You mentioned Ogden Nash so there a couple of his that might have fit the occasion -
A couple which expresses my thoughts on the current president and the power in congress
The Wasp
by Ogden Nash
The wasp and all his numerous family
I look upon as a major calamity.
He throws open his nest with prodigality,
But I distrust his waspitality.
Everybody Tells Me Everything
by Ogden Nash
I find it very difficult to enthuse
Over the current news.
Just when you think that at least the outlook is so black that it can grow no blacker, it worsens,
And that is why I do not like the news, because there has never been an era when so many things were going so right for so many of the wrong persons.
It could be the reason poets seem to fail in these situations is being in such close proximity to politicians - causing them to make an attempt at some grand noise instead of quietly speaking the truth.
January 21st, 2009 at 6:26 pm
Great back story. I did not know it either.
As a child, my impression was that he could not read the poem in the blustery air and bright sunlight, and instead, put down the sheaf of paper, and recited it by heart.
But what he really did was to go straight to his encore. He had intended to read “The Gift Outright” following “Dedication” anyway.
Always have a Plan B ready . . . even if it’s only the epilogue to Plan A!
January 21st, 2009 at 7:29 pm
Here’s a version with line breaks as it apparently was written from a poet’s blog:
January 21st, 2009 at 7:41 pm
How does this stand up as reporting?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090121/ap_on_re_us/palin_media
Poems, Reporting all going downhill…
January 21st, 2009 at 7:48 pm
The stanzad version reads somewhat better, though I still don’t care for it much. However I do prefer Alexander’s poem to Maya Angelou’s rambling and annoying mess for Clinton’s inauguration.
Aside from the poem’s general slackness and triteness–which if you read the blog entry I linked earlier has not gone unnoticed even among poets–my big problem though is that I don’t hear myself included among the “we” Alexander repeatedly invokes.
Why not? I’m an American too and the inauguration of an American president is surely a day for all Americans. But not as Elizabeth Alexander would have it. This sounds very much like blacks talking to other blacks about a “love beyond marital, filial, and national love.” Furthermore, it is a “love with no need to pre-empt grievance.” Hmm…what could that be about?
If Obama’s election is all about becoming post-racial, could we–all of us, blacks included–move beyond race and start talking about that America which Obama says is not red or blue, or black or white? Or is that talk just a cover for the same-old, same-old, the “okey-doke” that Obama inveighed against earlier?
January 21st, 2009 at 8:04 pm
I especially like the idea of poetry in praise to the common man, but only 4 common men even know what the hell it said.
The irony is that “say it plain” is even in one verse.
January 21st, 2009 at 8:05 pm
Dear Neo:
May I humbly suggest a re-phrasing of your parenthesis?
Before: (although Alexander and Angelou may be wonderful people, very great poets they are not)
After: (although Alexander and Angelou may be very great, wonderful people, poets they are not)
January 21st, 2009 at 8:18 pm
Oh heck, have you seen what Poets-Laureate, even the half-way decent ones have written? Terrible. That’s what you get in poetry to order. Kipling was not only a great poet but a man who refused all state honours: knighthood, poet-laureateship, even the Order of Merit though the King offered it personally. That is the way real artists should behave. He accepted honorary degrees and the Nobel Prize of literature - his one mistake in this field.
January 21st, 2009 at 8:37 pm
Alexander’s inane poem was an embarassment to the Obama’s, but Lowry’s degenerate racism was a scandal.
On the other hand Warren’s invocation, William’s music and Obama’s speak were all well-done
January 21st, 2009 at 10:18 pm
Depression follows mania. When this Obama bubble bursts, it won’t be pretty.
January 21st, 2009 at 11:00 pm
It’s all pretty hollow , the whole shebang was hollow. Hollow, empty people, all with vain pretense. No original thought expressed by any, including the vapid Alexander. Why did the chicken….? covers it beautifully, Neo.
January 21st, 2009 at 11:07 pm
Helen — Well, I give the recent US Poet-Laureates credit for trying hard to restore poetry to the mainstream…though not with particular success.
I’m fond of Billy Collins, the 2000 PL, for his approachable whimsy. Neither WC Williams nor TS Eliot nor even Robert Frost are threatened, but at least Collins doesn’t take himself as seriously as Barbara Alexander seems to.
January 21st, 2009 at 11:20 pm
huxley: That’s a good one by Collins. I’m quite fond of his poetry—it manages to be pretty good poetry and often is simultaneously quite humorous, as well.
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:06 am
Yes, Collins is pretty good! I don’t think anyone wants to uphold Collins as great, but on his own stubborm;u modest terms he accomplishes what he sets out to do. His poems are original, interesting, and often humorous. Unlike Alexander, Collins does not hint at greater depths than can be found.
A film friend was recently explaining the idea of “termite art” as opposed to “white elephant art” put forth by Manny Farber:
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:12 am
–> “stubbornly modest terms”
January 22nd, 2009 at 4:06 am
Great poets can be great declamators, too. Another poet-laureate, Joseph Brodsky, has terrible accent, so many americans hardly could discern words, but he often made public recitals of his (and not only his) poems. As I read in many accounts of listeners, they all feel a profound drama simply in cadences of his voice; it was like a liturgy, which can emotionally elevate us even if conducted on unknown to listeners language.
January 22nd, 2009 at 7:45 am
Neo,
There’s a fun piece on poetry and Alexander by Stefan Kanfer over at City Journal.
January 22nd, 2009 at 11:48 am
[…] poem (“Praise Song for the Day” by Elizabeth Alexander). Many, evidently, did not. Some found it trite, or worse. I actually thought it was unpretentious and pretty well scaled for the […]
January 22nd, 2009 at 7:15 pm
I believe Ms. Alexander inadvertently left off the final line of her poem:
“Burma Shave.”
I liked Robert Frost as an Inaugural poet, but I thought Maya Angelou’s “poem” for the Inauguration was sheer crap and, in fact, can find no reason to see her as talented in any way, except for her Puffer fish way of inflating her importance.
In this, she reminds me of another fraud, Margaret Meade, wielder of the staff or wisdom.
January 22nd, 2009 at 8:06 pm
Wolla Daldo: Maya Angelou’s first memoir, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” was, despite the somewhat cutesy title, an excellent book. By now that sort of story has become a cliche, but at the time it was groundbreaking. The rest of her work isn’t much, but for that one book I very much admire her.
January 22nd, 2009 at 8:32 pm
I’m still puzzing over the lines:
This is a curious kind of love: beyond love of spouse, family and nation, qualified only by its refusal to pre-empt grievance.
Does this mean that America is finally off the hook for slavery and civil rights, or does it indicate that the measure of America will always be listening without pre-emption to grievance?