December 23, 2008
Elizabeth Alexander and a (Very) Brief History of Inaugural Poetry
Elizabeth Alexander, who teaches at Yale, was plucked last week from the relatively obscure recesses of contemporary poetry for a moment on the world stage. President-elect Barack Obama has commissioned her to compose and read a poem for his inauguration, making her only the fourth poet in American history to read at one and elevating the art to unaccustomed prominence in the national psyche, at least for a day.
I heard an interesting piece about Ms. Alexander on NPR the other day, and then The New York Times ran the above-quoted article about her on Saturday, and she seems like an interesting person entirely deserving of this honor, but the thing that has jumped out at me from both of these sources is that there’ve only been three inaugural poems before. Ever. In American history: Robert Frost in 1961 (Kennedy’s inauguration), Maya Angelou in 1993, and Miller Williams in 1997 (both of Clinton’s inaugurations).
Some of this makes sense. Kennedy was the first one to think of it, or at least put it in place. And then maybe it seemed to LBJ and the next president or two like bad hoodoo to emulate Kennedy’s inaugural and then the idea sort of faded away. Until Clinton—always trying to emulate Kennedy—resurrected it in 1993 and continued it through his second inauguration.
But here’s the thing: When President W took office in 2001, the last two inaugurations had included a poem. Not including one, then, would have to be a purposeful, calculated choice. And then an epiphany struck me:
George W. Bush is such a douchebag.
Brilliant, right? How am I just realizing this, right? Well, I’m not. But here’s the thing: Every time I hear about one of these things, I have those feelings all over again, anew. It’s this open anti-intellectualism. This we’re-from-Texas-and-we-hate-all-this-faggy-artsy-fartsy-stuff attitude. How are there enough people who’ll put up with that that this guy got elected twice?
Okay, sorry. That’s the past, I know. Back to the future. So, Rick Warren seems like a good choice, huh?
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Somewhere in the internets, I believe I’ve posted this before. Once skimming channels late at night, we happened upon the fabulous Harold Bloom visiting Charlie Rose. We caught Harold saying something like (likely I’ll misquote or paraphrase) “In the words of the divine Oscar Wilde, ‘all bad poetry is sincere’ and if the poem Maya Angelou wrote for the Clinton inaugeral was any indication, her poetry is most astonishingly sincere.” Personally, given what little I know of Bloom’s aesthetic, but I think I get it, a little. I don’t take this to mean he demeaned her for her poem or her speech, just that it won’t count a hundred years hence. It wasn’t art.
I look forward to what Ms. Alexander delivers. And I’ll hope to hear something that knocks my socks off. Something that will stand the test of time. I can’t imagine being asked to deliver such, let alone be able to sleep, knowing what assholes like me might say about her effort.
Based on the evidence of Ms. Alexander’s poetry quoted in the NY Times, I, for one, am not counting on hearing anything that will especially move me except in the already heightened state of awe the inauguration will already have me in. I expect the poem to be topical, somewhat political, and definitely sentimental. I sincerely hope I am wrong. For the record, I was expecting a better choice out of Barack Obama who actually wrote some pretty good pieces as a young man. The skeptic in me believes this enterprise will futher advance the bad taste for poetry most individuals acquire quite early in education. I think for me it was in kindergarten.
A little research pulled these gems up for your holiday cheer. Proceed with full knowledge that, for the record, I think these suck.
http://www.elizabethalexander.net/poems.html#P