Of Poetry and Power

By Judith Harway

(Judith Harway is a professor of writing at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design and a poet).

Near the end of an exhilarating inauguration day, I found myself reading Elizabeth Alexander’s “Praise Song for the Day” with one of my classes at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. After listening, the students peppered me with questions: Is Elizabeth Alexander America’s poet laureate? What is a poet laureate anyway? Why does the United States have a poet laureate, and not an artist or composer or choreographer laureate? Why does a presidential inauguration need a poem?

And, perhaps most intriguingly, How can anyone expect to write a great poem on demand?

Although I can’t address every star in this constellation of questions, my curiosity was definitely piqued. The long and lofty tradition of commissioning works of art or pieces of music for public occasions thrives into the present day, but somehow the relationship between poetry and power has dwindled since the days when every king maintained a versificator Regis in his retinue. Yes, the United States names a poet laureate, as do forty individual states and a surprising number of cities (Milwaukee’s current poet laureate, Susan Firer, whose work is intimately braided into the human and physical landscapes of the city, is a great example of how such a role can continue to have relevance); nevertheless, ours is an era and a culture in which it’s far more common to find individuals who say they write poems (a statement generally qualified by the phrase to express my feelings) than to find serious readers of contemporary poetry. Just ask my students.

The term “poet laureate” hearkens back to the ancient Greeks, who believed that Apollo reserved his laurel crowns for poets and heroes. The association of poets and heroes may seem quaint nowadays, but at the inauguration of this country’s first African-American president (not a poet, but he’s undeniably a terrific writer) it’s tempting to get swept away with effusive notions like Robert Frost composed for John F. Kennedy’s inauguration, hailing A golden age of poetry and power / Of which this noonday’s the beginning hour.

Curiously, Frost is the only poet laureate in American history to address the nation as a new president was sworn in (two year’s after Frost’s tenure in the post had ended, but who’s counting). And, to my ear, the poem he composed for Kennedy’s 1961 inaugural is a real clunker. It begins:

Summoning artists to participate

In the august occasions of the state

Seems something artists ought to celebrate.

Differing accounts of the day suggest variously that the sun and wind made it difficult for Frost to read his own words (he was 87 at the time, after all), or that Kennedy had requested a different poem in the first place. At any rate, what he recited for the inauguration was The Gift Outright, an earlier and far better work. In the years since, poetry has been invited to the table only three more times on inauguration day, each time to welcome an incoming Democratic president – Frost read for Kennedy; Maya Angelou for Bill Clinton’s first term (her inaugural poem, published as a chapbook, sold an unprecedented million copies) and Miller Williams for his second; and now Elizabeth Alexander ushers Obama into office. Call it party profiling, but this is little surprise to me as a reader or a voter.

Just to set the record straight for my students, Elizabeth Alexander is not the current poet laureate of the United States. Kay Ryan is. Ryan’s work is a poetry of ideas, at once elegant and open to nimble rhythmic play. While I am an appreciative reader, I also see the wisdom of Obama’s choice of Alexander as the voice of this momentous inauguration (We now have a president who reads!! And thinks!! How cool is that?). Alexander ‘s work is at once accessible and complex, steeped in American history and in the lived particulars of human life. When I hear these lines from her inaugural poem –

Say it plain: that many have died for this day.

Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,

who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,

picked the cotton and the lettuce, built

brick by brick the glittering edifices

they would then keep clean and work inside of

– I am rooted in the knowledge that the Capitol building rising behind President Obama as he recited the oath of office was built by slaves; the White House in which President Obama will dwell and conduct the country’s business was built by slaves. This is the dimension that a great poem can add to a great inaugural address.

Of course poetry, like Obama himself, can ‘t change the fact that these are scary and uncertain times. One hired pen proclaiming the potential of a new administration is not mightier than the hired guns doing much of the dirty work in this country’s privatized wars. As Americans, however, our inheritance includes not only the beautiful, mongrel English language, but also a beautiful and ever richer stew of cultures that add to it by the day. This is very worthy of celebration, in poetry and in the ordinary gestures of our daily lives, as we stand, in Elizabeth Alexander’s words, on the brink, on the brim, on the cusp….

P.S. Just for the record, I still can’t quite explain how anyone manages to compose a great poem on demand, but apparently it can be done.