Will Obama have an inaugural poem? Which poet do you think he would pick?

[CTyankee]

Here's the last stanza of Maya Angelou's long poem at Clinton's first inauguration and the complete, shorter poem by Robert Frost at JFK's.

from On the Pulse of Morning

Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes, into
Your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning


The Gift Outright

The land was ours before we were the land’s
She was our land more than a hundred years
Before we were her people. She was ours
In Massachusetts, in Virginia,
But we were England’s, still colonials,
Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,
Possessed by what we now no more possessed.
Something we were withholding made us weak
Until we found out that it was ourselves
We were withholding from our land of living,
And forthwith found salvation in surrender.
Such as we were we gave ourselves outright
(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)
To the land vaguely realizing westward,
But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,
Such as she was, such as she will become.

[NightWatcher]

1. doesnt he already have one? Yes We Can

YES WE CAN

It was a creed, written into the founding documents
That declared the destiny of a nation:

Yes we can.

It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists
As they blazed a trail for freedom:

Yes we can.


It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from the shores,
Pioneers who pushed westward aginst the unforgiving wilderness:

Yes we can.

It was a call of workers organized,
Women who reached for the ballots,
A president who chose the moon as our new frontier,
And a King who took us to the mountaintop,
And pointed the way to the promised land:

Yes we can, to justice and equality.

Yes we can.


Yes we can, to opportunity and prosperity,
Yes we can, to opportunity and prosperity.
Yes we can heal this nation.
Yes we can repair this world.

Yes we can.


We know the battle ahead will be long.
But always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way,
Nothing can stand in the way of the power
Of millions of voices calling for change.

We want change.


We have been told we cannot do this, by a chorus of cynics
That will only grow louder and more dissonant.
We have been asked to pause for a reality check.
We've been warned against offering the people of this nation, false
hope.
But in the unlikely story that is America,
There has never been anything false about hope.

We want change.


From the hope that the little girl
Who goes to the public school in Dillon
Are same as the dreams of the boy
Who learns on the streets of LA.

We will remember that there is something happening in America,
That we are not as divided as our politcs suggest.
That we are one people, we are one nation.
And together we will begin the next great chapter in the American story
With three words that will ring
From coast to coast, from sea to shining sea:

Yes we can.

[damonm]

5. Well done - that yours?

[Drunken Irishman]

9. It's from Obama's speech after he lost the NH primary.

[CTyankee]

11. I THINK that is one of Obama's speeches

but I'm not sure which one. It's very nice. I know it has been put to music. That could be presented at the inauguration. How cool is that?

[NightWatcher]

15. it is from this speech

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjXyqcx-mYY

jump to 10:45

[geiger]

6. yes.

[GarbagemanLB]

2. Roses are red, violets are blue

I'm President now, hey GOP, screw you.

[CTyankee]

3. I'll volunteer to read that one at the Inauguration! n/t

[CTyankee]

4. I'll volunteer to read that one at the Inauguration! n/t

[saltpoint]

33. : )

[crankychatter]

7. Let me be the first to recommend this outSTANDing OP and discussion

BOB DYLAN BOB DYLAN BOB DYLAN BOB DYLAN BOB DYLAN

PLEASE?

In fact... let's draft his aged ass

"Are you who, philosophize disgrace?
...and criticize all fears?
Take the rag, away from your face,
for NOW, ain't the time, for your tears."

from The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carrol by Bob Dylan

[CTyankee]

12. I'm not too fond of Frost's either. State functions do not lend themselves to great poetry.

Great oratory, yes, but not great poems, prolly because poems are so complex and often ambiguous and you need something straightforward for an inauguration...

[crankychatter]

13. you will find dylan lyrics that are not in the least abstruse if you look

The Times They Are A-Changin'

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.

[CTyankee]

17. It's my taste for a song but I am awfully choosy about poetry.

If Stanley Kunitz were still alive, he would probably be able to do something, perhaps close to this phrasing from his famous "The Testing Tree":


In a murderous time
the heart breaks and breaks
and lives by breaking.
It is necessary to go
through dark and deeper dark
and not to turn.

[gauguin57]

16. Frost couldn't see to read "Dedication," the poem he had WRITTEN for JFK's inaugural

The blinding sun was right in his eyes.

So he recited "The Gift Outright" from memory.

This is the poem he wrote for the occasion and was supposed to read there:

Dedication
by Robert Frost

Summoning artists to participate
In the august occasions of the state
Seems something artists ought to celebrate.
Today is for my cause a day of days.
And his be poetry's old-fashioned praise
Who was the first to think of such a thing.
This verse that in acknowledgement I bring
Goes back to the beginning of the end
Of what had been for centuries the trend;
A turning point in modern history.
Colonial had been the thing to be
As long as the great issue was to see
What country'd be the one to dominate
By character, by tongue, by native trait,
The new world Christopher Columbus found.
The French, the Spanish, and the Dutch were downed
And counted out. Heroic deeds were done.
Elizabeth the First and England won.
Now came on a new order of the ages
That in the Latin of our founding sages
(Is it not written on the dollar bill
We carry in our purse and pocket still?)
God nodded his approval of as good.
So much those heroes knew and understood,
I mean the great four, Washington,
John Adams, Jefferson, and Madison
So much they saw as consecrated seers
They must have seen ahead what not appears,
They would bring empires down about our ears
And by the example of our Declaration
Make everybody want to be a nation.
And this is no aristocratic joke
At the expense of negligible folk.
We see how seriously the races swarm
In their attempts at sovereignty and form.
They are our wards we think to some extent
For the time being and with their consent,
To teach them how Democracy is meant.
"New order of the ages" did they say?
If it looks none too orderly today,
'Tis a confusion it was ours to start
So in it have to take courageous part.
No one of honest feeling would approve
A ruler who pretended not to love
A turbulence he had the better of.
Everyone knows the glory of the twain
Who gave America the aeroplane
To ride the whirlwind and the hurricane.
Some poor fool has been saying in his heart
Glory is out of date in life and art.
Our venture in revolution and outlawry
Has justified itself in freedom's story
Right down to now in glory upon glory.
Come fresh from an election like the last,
The greatest vote a people ever cast,
So close yet sure to be abided by,
It is no miracle our mood is high.
Courage is in the air in bracing whiffs
Better than all the stalemate an's and ifs.
There was the book of profile tales declaring
For the emboldened politicians daring
To break with followers when in the wrong,
A healthy independence of the throng,
A democratic form of right devine
To rule first answerable to high design.
There is a call to life a little sterner,
And braver for the earner, learner, yearner.
Less criticism of the field and court
And more preoccupation with the sport.
It makes the prophet in us all presage
The glory of a next Augustan age
Of a power leading from its strength and pride,
Of young amibition eager to be tried,
Firm in our free beliefs without dismay,
In any game the nations want to play.
A golden age of poetry and power
Of which this noonday's the beginning hour.

[CTyankee]

27. You are right! I remember that now. However, this one is worse than "The Gift Outright."

I'm afraid I don't like Frost too much. My taste runs to Wallace Stevens, but he is one tough poet to deconstruct ("The Idea of Order at Key West" is a fun workout). Stevens and Frost were contemporaries. Frost accused Stevens of not having any subjects for his poems. Stevens rejoined saying that Frost had too many subjects in his poetry.

[gauguin57]

28. I started liking Frost once realized how DARK the dude was!

I like his poems because they have meanings on multiple levels, yet they're lyrical AND accessible.

And I do like Wallace Stevens (originally a Pennsylvanian! Yay!). I'm a "Sunday Morning" fan, myself ... I see it as being about what we do with the space within us where religion used to be for some of us.

http://www.web-books.com/Classics/Poetry/Anthology/Stevens_W/Sunday.htm

"Complacencies of the peignoir, and late
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,
And the green freedom of a cockatoo
Upon a rug mingle to dissipate
The holy hush of ancient sacrifice. ..."

Aaaaah!

[CTyankee]

32. Here's one of Stevens' that I like.

The Snow Man


One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

[WinkyDink]

8. I really disliked MA's poem, so I hope she isn't chosen again.

[RadicalTexan]

10. Whitman.

Whitman, Whitman, Whitman.

[Metric System]

14. But she's a McCain supporter!

Oh, wait...

[Strawman]

26. McCain might pick "Passage to India"

In honor of our jobs.

But I love Whitman. Anything particular you have in mind?

[gauguin57]

29. I could go with Whitman ... this part of Leaves of Grass about the songs of the common man

and woman ... it's what Obama is all about!

91. I Hear America Singing

I HEAR America singing, the varied carols I hear;
Those of mechanics—each one singing his, as it should be, blithe and strong;
The carpenter singing his, as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his, as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work;
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat—the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck;
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench—the hatter singing as he stands;
The wood-cutter’s song—the ploughboy’s, on his way in the morning, or at the noon intermission, or at sundown;
The delicious singing of the mother—or of the young wife at work—or of the girl sewing or washing—Each singing what belongs to her, and to none else;
The day what belongs to the day—At night, the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing, with open mouths, their strong melodious songs.

[BklynChick]

18. my vote would be for Toni Morrison. I don't know if she writes poetry, but she writes beautiful

prose and is a big Obama supporter (from the beginning).

[gauguin57]

19. Two of my favorite contemporary poets are Billy Collins and Robert Pinsky.

Rita Dove is another possibility.

[Beregond2]

20. Did you see the spoof of Angelou on "Chocolate News?"

Hilarious.

[caraher]

23. I liked the poem for a McCain win:

President-elect John McCain

Ain't this a bitch?

[HuckleB]

21. I love Maya, but I hope he goes with someone with a more modern sensibility.

Tony Hoagland would be awesome! And humorous.

[Bucky]

22. Ice T, "Hunted Child". But only because Theodore Suess Geisel is dead.

[vaberella]

24. If he does...and I thank DUers for this it should be...

The Revolution Will Not be Televised by Gil Scott Heron
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTCQSk2l8bc

[Youphemism]

25. I vote for the one about the guy from Nantucket. /nt

[DrPresident]

30. Jay-Z "99 Problems"

[gauguin57]

31. OK, this one by Langston Hughes is intense ... but don't we want "America to be America again"?

I think this poem would be a great "bye bye Bushie and all your wealthy friends who control this country and keep everyone else down" poem! It would never fly, but I can dream.

Let America Be America Again by Langston Hughes

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!