![]() ![]() Langston Hughes is helping people get through this election (Photo by MPI/Getty Images) MPI/Getty Images Although born in Joplin, Missouri, he was a central figure in the Harlem renaissance. I had gotten so many letters and responses from perfect strangers, who pretty much told me how much it meant to have someone (like me) who could speak for them.Ĭirca 1940: African-American poet and writer, Langston Hughes (1902 - 1967). I felt moved to write it when I was newly appointed, (when) I was reflecting on what a poet laureate stands for. I chose (to read) “ Lady Freedom Among Us,” which is a poem I had written back when I was poet laureate. I was so happy that there was a venue where this could be expressed, not only in New York but all over the country. We are of the world in the world and write about that world and therefore it behooves us to get out there and talk. That writers are not the stereotypical person writing in the attic or the ivory tower. That’s why I think it’s important and meaningful to have a poem read at a swearing-in of a president.ĬNN: What prompted your participation in Writers Resist and why choose to read the poem you did?ĭove : For me, to participate was not only a call to literary arms – a way of saying that we are not going to sit back and roll over and do whatever the new government decides is best for us – but it also meant that writers were taking a step into the political arena. That pulls the citizen in you out, into the air. When you hear a poem, you both feel it enter you, but you also have to rise to meet it. What a poem does is remind us is that we are fallible and at the same time that we’re just trying to do the right thing. The antidote to campaign madness is poetry It turns out that an inauguration was actually a situation where you would ask for a sign from the gods that you were doing something right. When you look at the word inaugural – where does this word really come from, what does it really mean or stand for? – you see that its meaning is embedded deep in its etymology ‘augur’, in ancient Rome, was the word for omen, for foreboding. That is both immensely comforting and challenging and exhilarating. You feel like an individual but you are also part of a community. But at the same time, you can feel an incredibly individual sense of empathy. Rita Dove : What is meaningful about a poem being read at any event where a nation or a community is gathered is that a poem will make us feel like we are coming together. The interview was lightly edited for clarity and length.ĬNN: What stands out to you as meaningful in idea of a poem being read at the swearing-in of a president? She spoke with me about the power poetry can have for everyday citizens and a commander in chief. Kennedy His Inauguration”) for the occasion but chose in the moment (because, he later said and as Bendat outlines in his book, he couldn’t see to read the words he’d typed out on the page because of the bright sunlight) to recite from memory a shorter poem, “The Gift Outright.”įrost’s improvisation aside, inaugural poets have delivered a work written for the occasion: Maya Angelou’s “ On the Pulse of Morning,” Miller Williams’ “ Of Hope and History” for Clinton – and Alexander and Blanco for Obama.ĭove, whose most recent book is Collected Poems: 1974-2004, is now the Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia. Robert Frost actually prepared a poem (“ Dedication,” later retitled “For John F. ![]() Bendat confirms that only Democratic presidents – JFK, Clinton, and Obama – have had a poet at their swearing-in. Between the new leader’s vision for our nation and a prayer to keep it safe and free, there was poetry.Īs Jim Bendat points out, to be an inaugural poet is to join an intimate group of only five, with only two – Alexander, and Richard Blanco, who read “ One Today” when Barack Obama was inaugurated for his second term – still living. Lowery – offers some insight into what role poems have historically played in the swearing-in of presidents. She had the perhaps unenviable task of following the President as a speaker, but her placement on the program – between Obama’s inaugural address and the final benediction from the Rev. The air was bitterly cold in January 2009 when poet Elizabeth Alexander read “Praise Song for the Morning,” composed for the occasion of Barack Obama’s first inauguration. ![]() Only Democrats – Kennedy, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama – have had a poet read from the steps of the Capitol. And yet, according to inaugural historian Jim Bendat, it hasn’t been a consistent feature of the day. Poets have been, for some inauguration watchers, a part of the spectacle of the occasion since Robert Frost, the first poet to appear at the ceremony, read for John F. ![]()
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