[65 years ago Tuesday, John F. Kennedy was inaugurated as President. One of the most famous parts of that January 1961 event was Robert Frost’s powerful poem, so this week I’ll AmericanStudy that text and other occasional poetry from American history. Leading up to a first for this blog, a piece of my own creative writing!]
On the first poem read at an inauguration, the poem that could
have been but wasn’t, and what we both lost and gained as a result.
Because a number of the recent
presidential inaugurations have featured poetic readings (the last five in which Democrats were inaugurated—it’s
funny that only Democratic Presidents seem interested in featuring these
cultural figures and works…), it might seem like the practice has been long-established
or consistently present at these historic events. But really the opposite is
true: the first such inaugural poet in American history, and the only one
before Clinton restarted the practice in 1993 (inviting Maya Angelou, on whose
inaugural poem more tomorrow), was Robert Frost at John F. Kennedy’s
inauguration 65 years ago today. Kennedy was a
big fan of Frost’s, noting that “I’ve never taken the view the world of
politics and the world of poetry are so far apart” (both perspectives that Frost
himself had recently reciprocated and reinforced by actively supporting
Kennedy’s campaign), and asked the poet to read his 1923 poem “The Gift
Outright” at the inauguration.
Never one to do things the easy
way, though, the 86-year-old Frost apparently didn’t want to just read that
existing poem. He drafted a new prefatory poem for the occasion, “Dedication”
(later expanded and known as “For
John F. Kennedy His Inauguration”), which he planned to read ahead of “Gift.”
Unfortunately the glare from the morning sun (especially as reflected by the
new-fallen show from a serious nor’easter
which had hit the city over the previous two days) made it impossible for Frost
to read this new work from his papers; after struggling for a bit he noted, “this was to
have been a preface to a poem which I do not have to read” and then, like the
badass he was, recited “The Gift Outright” from memory. He subsequently gave
Kennedy first a manuscript
copy of the original “Dedication” and then another of the expanded poem “For
John. F Kennedy His Inauguration,” which Frost had published in his 1962
collection In
the Clearing.
I love the idea of Frost sharing a new
poem as part of this inaugural inaugural poetry reading (repetition poetically intended,
obvi), and “Dedication” begins with a really fun invocation of the occasion
that I’m sorry he didn’t get to share there: “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.” But on the other hand, later in the poem Frost
writes, “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.” There are a number
of problems with those lines, but I would particularly note that as a preface
to “Gift,” which more or less directly features a Manifest Destiny-like vision
of American history and land, it’s especially problematic to refer to other “races”
as “our
wards.” I have to say I’m glad those phrases weren’t part of the first poetic
work to be read at an inauguration.
Next occasional poem tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you think? Occasional poetry you’d share?
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