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The Inaugural Poem
Published: 1/21/2009 12:37 PM
Last Modified: 1/21/2009 12:37 PM

It's always heartening to see poetry be given some pride of place in a ceremony as momentous as the inauguration of the President of the United States.

And certainly being asked to write a poem for such an occasion is a daunting task. You are addressing the nation at one of its most significant -- and truly unique -- moments: the peaceable exchange of power.

Unfortunately, Elizabeth Alexander was overwhelmed by the assignment. The piece she read at Tuesday's inauguration of Barack Obama, "Praise Song for the Day" was no doubt the best she could do, but it's a lackluster poem.

The imagery used, and the sentiments expressed, were distressingly vague,almost scattershot, as this poem were cobbled together from drafts of several different works into an uneasy, combative whole.

In stories about poetry at presidential inaugurations, writers usually mention Robert Frost reading at John F. Kennedy's inauguration in 1961, and that Bill Clinton had Maya Angelou and Miller Williams read new poems at his two ceremonies.

But no one, it seems, remembers that James Dickey, best-known for his novel "Deliverance," read a poem for Jimmy Carter's inaugural in 1977.

Dickey's "The Strength of Fields" is unusual among presidential inaugural poems, in that it is not about the nation, or vision, or hope, or any other intangible emotion. It is about the person who is about to take on the job of governing the country, taking a late-night walk through a rural landscape and imagining what he will face come the morning.

"Dear Lord of all the fields," the poem's narrator says, "what am I going to do?

It's not a perfect poem, or even one of Dickey's best poems -- there are some gaseous bits at the start and in the middle.

But its concluding lines have an undeniable power -- and express ideas that one hopes are in the mind of any person who dares pursue the challenge of being President:

"Lord, let me shake
With purpose. Wild hope can always spring
From tended strength. Everything is in that.
That and nothing but kindness. More kindness, dear Lord
Of the renewing green. That is where it all has to start:
With the simplest things. More kindness will do nothing less
Than save every sleeping one
And night-walking one


Of us.
My life belongs to the world. I will do what I can."

Amen




Reader Comments 1 Total
wayne greene (4 years ago)
Well put, James.
Poetry? Yes, but make it good poetry.
I'm reminded of one of OU English Professor Alan Velie's favorite anecdotes from his graduate school days at Harvard.
Someone had come up with a new sonnet and was attributing authorship to Shakespeare, which set the critics abuzz over the technical analysis as a means of proving or disproving it's authenticity. Velie shocked his fellow graduate students by asking the simpler, more important question: Is the poem any good? It wasn't, he felt, so it didn't really matter if Shakespeare wrote it or not.
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ARTS

James D. Watts Jr. has lived in Oklahoma for most his life, even though he still has people saying to him, "Don't sound like you're from around these parts." A University of Oklahoma Phi Beta Kappa graduate, Watts has received the Governor Arts Award, Harwelden Award and the National Conference of Christians and Jews Beth Macklin Award for his writing. Before coming to the Tulsa World, Watts worked for the Tulsa Tribune.

Contact him at (918) 581-8478.

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