The only truly uncomfortable moment for me during Obama’s inauguration was the moment I least expected to dislike—Elizabeth Alexander’s poetry reading. I haven’t wanted to talk about that particular feature out of respect for what was an emotional and history making moment. But enough time has passed I suppose, and the rattle of discontent from poetry fans is audible. For example John Stoehr wrote about his dissatisfaction on the blog flyover:
By the time Alexander took the podium, I’d stopped listening. Her poem came right after the new president’s speech. By then, I was emotionally spent. And I have no doubt many, many thousands of others were, too. If Alexander was going to push poetry forward into American consciousness, she’d probably need to knock our socks off before Obama, not after. As it is, she left poetry pretty much where she found it.
Fortunately, we have a president who knows how to turn a phrase. Maybe after four years of speeches — and he’s going to give a lot of them to save the economy — more people will disagree that poetry is “dull, genteel, a form of little interest.”
And the critic Jack Foley went even farther, publishing the following open letter on Contemporary Poetry Review:
Dear Ms. Alexander,
I have long considered whether to write this note about your inaugural poem, “Praise Song for the Day.”
It may well be better to let the matter (and the poem) be forgotten, as I believe they will be. Or if remembered, remembered only as still another dull poem written for still another presidential inauguration. I wondered whether you showed the poem to anyone before you decided it was “finished.” Surely a clumsy line like “We need to find a place where we are safe; we walk into that which we cannot yet see” might have been improved. From a purely musical point of view, didn’t you have difficulty saying “we walk into that which we cannot yet see?”
Nobody sets out to write a bad poem, yet, unfortunately, many bad poems have been achieved. Just about any poet of any distinction is guilty of writing badly at times. And I realize that you’ve written far better poems than the one you displayed for the entire nation to see.
But that is what is depressing about it.
Here was an opportunity to show millions of people—millions of people—what an exciting thing poetry is. Look at what you gave them. Look at what you gave all those people who think poetry is dull, genteel, a form of little interest—a dead thing. You gave great affirmation to their opinion; without meaning to, and I’m sure with the best of intentions, you drove still another nail into the coffin of poetry.
I’m sorry to be writing this because I think you are basically a good poet. But now a bad, banal, rhetorically dull poem will be presented to the American people as an example of the high reaches of the art. What a shame.
Sincerely,
Jack Foley
When Alexander was announced as the poet who would participate in this historic event, I found some of her poems online and thought she was a damn decent choice. Perhaps it is true that she was hopelessly positioned to fail. Following the brilliance of Obama’s rhetorical cadence would be a stand up job for a genius. But it was still a missed opportunity. I would have been so pleased to have experienced the power of that day poetically as well as politically.
Timing is everything, both within the poem (meter, sound) and around it (in the sequence of events.) Clearly, this poem was poorly timed on both counts. I suppose, a poet being human, even a good poet, the thought of reading at an inauguration can at first seem like an honor and then like a death blow to the muse who refuses to appear on command, like asking a child to recite at a party.
Yeah, it feels utterly daunting. But I keep imagining what it could have been. Can’t help it, since there have been moments in my life where the music of poetry has taken me so close to bliss.
I can’t imagine a subject about which I’d be less inclined to write a poem. If anything, Alexander’s poem’s failure to inspire seems to reinforce the idea that poems shouldn’t be thrown around like Hallmark cards for special occasions. The best ones rarely get called up by acts of will or promises of money and fame. Maybe Alexander’s poetry didn’t fail so much as we have failed poetry.
LP, so there’s no decent occasional poetry? I hear what you are saying, but it doesn’t seem right to think it has never succeeded in a moment as serious and portentious as January 20th…Maybe I’m just too optimistic. Your point is a good one.
And I thought I was let down by the drivel Ted Hughes was obliged, as Poet Laureate, to write when Prince Andrew married Sarah Ferguson.
It’s hardly to be wondered at when great poets write bad poems for occasions they did not choose. What hurts is when mediocre but highly successful poets are chosen for purely symbolic reasons to write and read poetry that need not be good on occasions that would thwart a genius of the form.
I too got a tiny bit familiar with Alexander’s work when the announcement was made. I found it wearying, but didn’t want to be unfair or nasty about Obama’s chosen poet. I am very hard to please when it comes to poetry, and work that many poetry lovers follow with interest leaves me cold. My most glorious 50th birthday present to myself was dropping the reflex to give the writer a chance by abiding with her work in the absence of real attraction to it. I’ve never looked back, although I’m sure I’ve missed some stuff that I would have eventually found good. But there’s so little time, and so much that is deeply sustaining.
I’ve “dropped the reflex” to read every book I pick up all the way to the end. Poetry’s shorter form is an advantage (as well as a disadvantage) in that regard. Part of being 50 is the permissions we grant ourselves out of respect for the downward slope of our lives. I’m all for that.